The Promise of What Is
by Meridian1
Summary: In the Beginning, there was the Matrix. Before that, this.
1. April 27th, 1997

Title: The Promise of What Is 

Author: Meridian 

Rating: R for sex, drugs, and violence, though not necessarily in that order. Oh, and swearing, though I've been meaning to cut back. 

Summary: In the beginning, there was _The Matrix_. Before that, this. 

Spoilers: _The Matrix_? 

Author's Notes: I think I threw in every cliche but the kitchen sink, from Trinity's love life to how 

Morpheus got his groove back. But, to make it new and exciting again, I'm telling it out of order like all those classy directors do nowadays. It has to be good if it makes no chronological sense, right? *crickets chirping* 

(2003-?) 

**04-27-97**

They weren't safe in the open. Times were getting dangerous enough that most crews didn't feel safe operating in _daylight._ Too easy to be seen, too likely for the more famous among the resistance to be spotted by some pencil-pusher who could recognize a face from a mug shot. They had always operated in secret, rats in the walls of the world, emerging only when no one noticed so that their holes-their exits-were never compromised. They worked in the crevices naturally, so little matter that they took to working at night, wearing black, trying harder to blend in and fade when inside. Paradoxically, every invisible run into the Matrix was meant to reveal the illusion, to peel back the invisibility. It was why they had to be careful. Why they didn't work during the day if they could help it. And never, never out in the open. Streets were the enemy, best left to memories or forgotten altogether. 

Every fiber of Trinity's being was screaming these warnings to her even as she sank gracefully, if a bit formally, into a cheap metal chair outside an anonymous bistro. Morpheus, reclining casually, appraised her stiff back and refusal to relax with one of his most enigmatic-and, she secretly thought, _annoying_-smiles. Like the clothes he wore, the smile did not belong to him; it trespassed on the usually serious face with a humor that betrayed no irony. Atypical. 

"I don't like this." She didn't need to say it. He knew her well enough to know just how little she liked anything about sitting with two coffees-_not real, not real,_ she berated her traitorous yen for the substance-in the middle of a public space. 

"I understand your objection. Relax. If you don't, you _will_ cause trouble. As is, we are fine." The great leader did something that would have destroyed his reputation as a staunch anti-Matrix revolutionary: he raised the disposable cup to his mouth and took a long sip of the bitter fluid. Worse, he sighed with tangible satisfaction, shaking his head. "I do miss coffee." 

"You should watch what you say," she paused, appraising him with a critical-_jealous_, her thoughts nagged-eye. "That might get back to the wrong people." 

"Not from you." 

"No." That much was understood between them, no matter what they kept from each other. Trinity knew he was aware of only the most admirable reasons for her loyalty. As she was truly devoted to their cause and to Morpheus as a wise, fearless, and inspirational leader, the most selfish reasons for her fidelity remained her intellectual property alone; Morpheus did not need to know what _personal_ stake she had in his quest. He assumed her zeal matched his own for whatever reasons he did, expected and received her support, and pressed no farther. Still, they could poke at one another, prod at the lapses of judgment, suggest means to change, invite personal discussions, no matter if they already knew the answers. 

"Why are we doing this here?" 

"Relax," Morpheus repeated, lowering his head so that a sliver of his eyes could be seen over his rather ordinary sunglasses. Along with his full-length leather coat and expensive, eccentric purple suit, he had shucked his exotic clipped-on pair of sunglasses. All in all, he resembled the _real_ Morpheus now more than the infamous terrorist residual self image he usually wore on their runs into the Matrix. An ordinary white windbreaker, a salmon polo shirt beneath, and gray slacks. The only piece of his attire that had shocked her more than the entire blase ensemble were his shoes. These were as outrageous as the rest of his clothes were subdued; they resembled bowling shoes more closely than anything else, save that the red and orange leather panels all said "Tide" on them. 

He hadn't explained any of his choices, but he had taken her incredulity in stride before turning on _her_ outfit. Before she could protest, Morpheus had Tank remodeling her typical patent leather second skin into what she could only consider an abomination. Tank called it "pretty." Linen baby-doll style shirt with lightly laced cuffs, a satin skirt with black lace trim, and a matching pair of high heels.All of it, save the skirt's trim and her pink-_pink!_-toenails, was _white_. Instead of accentuating her pale complexion, the white cloth offset it. She felt almost tan. 

Actually, first she had felt homicidal. She wanted to split Morpheus' bemused grin with a well-placed machete before demanding Tank pull her out of the construct so she could kill him, too. Instead, she had allowed him to talk her into going into the Matrix like this. No leather because it didn't match Morpheus' outfit, and he refused to budge on the issue of his attire. No _weapons_-well, none save the M11 snuck in the woven handbag accompanying her outfit, complete with a flower print that matched her pedicure. No sunglasses-she sulked mightily at him when _he_ took a pair, even if they weren't his usual ones. 

"We're incognito today." He brought her wandering, grumpy mind back to the present without using her name. That, at least, was a taboo he was not eager to violate, not in such a vulnerable spot with the pair of them relatively unarmed. He took another sip of his coffee. "That's the way disguises work. No one looks for either of us at coffee shops dressed like-" 

"Like rejects from a boat show?" She snapped, fingernails digging into the soft flesh of her clenched fist. 

"-like normal people," he finished evenly, unperturbed by her manner. "What is extraordinary for us is nothing to them," he waved a hand absently. "This way we may observe unobserved, as it were." Nothing in his words would have drawn so much as a raised eyebrow, and yet she understood perfectly that, despite his lethargic comfort, his mind was on their mission: reconnaissance. 

"We could have just watched from the outside." Paranoia seized her, and she glanced to either side at the other patrons who'd opted to enjoy the sunshine at the outdoor section of the cafe. No agents, not yet, just normal people, as Morpheus had said-drinking coffee, reading the paper, swapping stories with friends, arguing on mobile phones. In her mind, she imagined reading their code in the cold core of the _Neb_. 

As if he had read her thoughts, Morpheus interjected, "Do we ever truly learn just by watching?" 

"We can't talk to him. It's too dangerous. He'd remember us if we came back later." This was no less true for all of their attempts to mask their identities. It would not have prevented this latest potential recruit from recognizing them later, not even if she _had_ worn the blonde wig Tank originally programmed for her. Moreover, she would die before she let anyone she might have to work with-besides Morpheus-see her in this getup. 

"We can't interact, that's true." Morpheus paused, as he was wont to do before a patronizing delivery of some insight that he believed was the heart of the current charade. "We can observe only, but our eyes deceive us. There are things we must trust to the other senses," he inclined his head again to pin her over the top of his lenses with a significant stare. "Read between the lines." 

_Lines of code_, she nodded grimly, collapsing back against the faux-wooden back to her chair, letting, for the first time since jacking in, some tension run from her shoulders in defeat. He was right. The maddening thing about Morpheus was that he tended to be right so often. She could comprehend why the more literal, more practical members of the resistance often sneered at his methods and then bristled when he succeeded time and again. 

"Why now?" What did he need to talk about that he had to have these protective barriers, this willful loss of self? 

"I needed to re-evaluate myself and my methods." 

"This is not going to become standard procedure." This was _not_ a question. She'd seriously consider jumping ship if he tried to enforce this dress code. Only when he did not rise to the taunt did she frown and wait. He seemed pensive, disturbed, no longer in the mood to joke, not even at her expense. "What is it?" 

"I've failed them." 

Trinity bit down on a friendly, emphatic denial. It wasn't what he wanted to hear. All Morpheus had ever wanted of her was her honest opinion; he prized her tenacity in this respect, his dreamier and trusting nature required her solid and grounded counter-balance. He believed, she questioned, and together they planned to find the compromise between faith and fact. 

"You gave them hope. Made them believe it was possible to be more than they were." 

"False hope," he interjected but gestured for her to continue. 

Trinity shook her head. "No, you told them what you thought, how it was possible. You gave them hope." She leaned in closer. "But _they_ chose to believe." 

"I've been told I can be very persuasive." A ghost of a melancholic smile flitted over his lips, one she had seen far too many times in the real world. 

"You didn't convince _her_." He took her meaning: _Niobe_. It was sick, she realized, dismissing one failure by using the example of another. However, it was true, and Morpheus nodded. "Free will, remember? Choice." 

"I thought..." he paused, a sigh escaping him, "I thought I could just convince them into being the One." He ignored the hiss she made at hearing the title-it seemed risky to her to use even that ubiquitous a word, given its significance and meaning. "If they just believed, I could make them into what we've been looking for." 

"Maybe they didn't come with the right qualifications." Trinity reclined, draping one arm over the back of her chair, leisurely crossing her legs. How absurd to discuss something as important as the savior of their fledgling cause like this! They sounded like recruiters, pouring over resumes for the candidate who not only went to the right school, had the right grades, right recommendations, but who could also dice, slice, and make julienne fries. 

"They all seemed special. All a little more quick than most, more than us at times. Different." _In oh-so-many ways_, she shook her head to clear the creeping edge of despair to that thought. As per his usual, Morpheus was right: they all had been special, more so than normal recruits, an extraordinary feat. _But maybe..._

"But maybe different doesn't mean special," he finished her thought. 

"What then? Should we only look at norms?" 

"There has to be something else. A feeling. A gut reaction if nothing else. I've been focusing my search here, using this," he tapped his temple lightly with his index finger. "I need to look with my instinct more than my intellect." His hand dropped to rest, fisted, in his lap. 

His words sunk into her, stirring that mire of apprehension, that nagging voice that shouted: _he's right! he's right and you know it! _It demanded she confess to Morpheus those secrets she deemed outside of his realm of concern. _Tell him you can find the One, you'll know if he's right._ It got uglier the more she repressed it. _Tell him what you never told him-tell him that you've known none of them were the One all along! Confess!_ Trinity gritted her teeth; conscience was a bitch. 

No, the Oracle was a bitch. She told everyone to use senses or methods they had least adapted and perfected to guide them along their path. Morpheus was not practical; he was ill-suited to the trial-and-error search pattern they followed trying to locate the One. Trinity was not romantic, and the Oracle had doomed her to thinking with precisely that organ she so mistrusted: her heart. 

"So we're here to see if your gut can pick up anything on this guy?" Trinity had to bite her tongue to keep the name from sliding off it. _Neo_. Just another guy, another copper-top, not quite at the level-and certainly not at the _age_-they usually recruited. Nothing about him stood out from the typical profile: loner, mildly discontent, none-too-concerned with the trifling matter of the legality of some of his activities. 

"Essentially and not quite." She did not dignify this response with anything more than an irritated raised eyebrow. "I _am_ here to see if I can perceive any peculiarities about this one." 

"But?" 

"I must be honest. I just wanted to remind myself what normal people were like." After a pause, he added, "Normal like us." 

"He's hardly up to our caliber." Trinity knew her attitude turned off recruits, as well as intimidating others. Yet that was what was different about the crew of the _Neb-_her severe prejudices with regards to talent did not deter them, specifically because she judged them all competent-_equals._

"True," Morpheus smiled wistfully, "and that's why I wanted to come in for this one." 

"Explain." 

"I'm trying." He was, she had to admit. This was one of few times she times she could recall him struggling. "He's not good. He's average. He could get better, he could just 'grow up' like so many others," he spat the words with disgust. "He's nothing like what I've looked for up to now. Too old, too new at what little he does manage to get away with. It's a cusp we don't usually examine closely." 

"It's better to make sure they're committed." 

"Is it?" 

This stopped her short, her tongue freezing in mid-delivery of all the reasons it was safer, why it was standard _procedure_ to wait, to see who would make it. Rather than freeing a person, risking already freed people for someone who might freak out or suicide upon confrontation with reality. She decided to wait for him to speak to offer any opinion. 

"We're good at what we do. We do the research to make sure the people we take are ones who think like us. Why don't we look for people who aren't sure and see what tips them over the edge? Half the battle of maintaining our numbers is recruitment. Isn't it funny that we do no market research to see what little things separate us from the rest?" 

She snorted at the analogy. The pseudo-language of their veiled battle-speak was getting to be as inane as their surroundings. 

"Our history, in this or any other time, has shown that while fortune does favor the brave, there is no discounting the sheer power of luck. Generals may come from commoners while kings abscond from thrones. The right person is the one who is in the right place at the right time, and who has whatever it is that makes them fittest to emerge from the encounter the superior combatant." 

A humorless, cynical smile played over Trinity's lips."You don't mean to apply Darwin to this hunt? Aren't you the Creationist in this science?" 

"Ah," his smirk returned, "the two _can_ be reconciled." 

"This is why we're here." 

"Yes." 

"So you can mesh two unrelated philosophies of yours." 

"So that I may test my hypothesis." 

"Which is?" 

"The One has not come along yet. It's not his time. But it is _our_ time. _We_ can see some element of his future in him. Whether he is this person or someone you and I have yet to discover." No names, she noted, not even Neo's birth name. And a fire in his words. This was Morpheus at his finest. Respectful silence ensued, Trinity caving and running a finger over the chocolate surface of her lukewarm coffee, licking it clean again with an inward shudder. 

An imperceptible shift in Morpheus' posture put her instantly on alert, banishing without difficulty the urge to indulge in this fantasy Morpheus had orchestrated. His eyes flashed over the top of his sunglasses, lazily but _purposefully_ glancing towards the street-side counter. Nonchalantly, Trinity uncrossed her legs and dropped her arm before recrossing her legs in the opposite direction. She tossed her head as if to shake a loose lock of hair from her eyes and settled into a comfortable position with a clear view of the queue forming at the counter. 

A balding man was ordering a grande latte between bouts of a heated argument on his cell phone that he ought not to have been having in public. Were she watching him from the ship, she wouldn't have heard any of the specifics, which went a long way to explaining Morpheus' new-found need to be digitally present for his observations on this mission. 

"No! I don't care if the bitch does have pictures..." 

"Sir, it's four-_fifty_, not four-fifteen," a beleaguered teenager was trying to get his attention in a strained but polite manner, gesturing between the readout on the register and the insufficient change in her hand. Gruffly, the man switched the phone to his other ear while he fished between pockets in his dark gray suit for change. 

"Here, damn it!" He shoved a crumpled dollar bill into her hand and went on screaming, adding gestures to accentuate his vulgarity. "I'll fucking _bury_ her on infidelity charges! There's no way she can pin anything on me! That bitch just wants handouts! What am I, a fucking ATM? I got this sign on me that says 'Please bleed me dry, you heartless cunt'?" This last invective train was punctuated with a sweeping gesture, his hand vaguely tracing the words across his chest before being flung wildly outward. 

Right smack into the face of the man standing behind him. _Their _man. Compared to the five-and-a-half-feet of hair-challenged fury in front of him, Thomas Anderson-Neo-appeared, despite having been roughly shaken from his reverie by a backhanded slap, positively tranquil. _Or exhausted,_ Trinity narrowed her eyebrows at the bags under Neo's eyes, biting down empathic frustration on Neo's behalf as he stared down at the shorter man who barely turned to mutter a quick, unapologetic "sorry" before resuming his tirade. 

"Sir, could you step aside please, sir, your coffee will be ready shortly. Sir?" 

The teenager behind the counter was definitely not being paid enough for this kind of treatment. Prior to her liberation, Trinity could recall the horrors of working a shit retail job; a programmed memory might not be real, but the misery of it lingered long enough. Instead of responding, he just shouted over her into his phone, cupping his hand over his free ear to smother outside noise. 

"Can I...can I help you?" The girl darted her head around the offending patron to try to get to Neo. Obligingly, he stepped to the side, opening his mouth in a wide yawn instead of answering straight away. 

In that short space of time, Trinity found her heart in her throat, straining for oxygen from the dead air in her gaping mouth. Where Neo had yawned, she expected speech and had, unknowingly, stopped breathing. As subtly as she could, she took an slow breath, praying Morpheus was too distracted to notice. She clenched the hand not draped around the back of her chair in the smooth fabric of her skirt. _There is nothing to be excited about_, she reasoned against the timpani of her heartbeat. It was a lie-a lot rode on how Morpheus reacted to this little experiment. Neo's decision to order a cappuccino versus a soda might very well determine where they went from here and how they did it. 

"Double espresso," Neo mumbled. She shouldn't have heard him from this distance; he mumbled, swallowing his words. Still, she absorbed every detail, as she'd learned to, as part of her survival instinct. Her first impressions of Neo were less than charitable. _Too old, too inexperienced, too naive_. _Not ready. _No one ever was, she had to concede, but there was a difference between those who could anticipate the worst and those who were constantly surprised by just how low their fortunes could sink. Neo, she surmised, was among this latter group. 

"What do you see?" Morpheus' voice was no more than a faint rumble; he spoke quietly that his words might have more gravity, and it always worked. 

"Too old." 

He did not reply, and a sideways glance at him discovered nothing of his opinion. Part of her bristled at his determination-why push what was not meant to be? Some of this frustration was leftover from their previous failures with other potentials, some of it generically associated with her mentor. As he refused to oblige her with any clues, Trinity turned once more to dissect their target visually. 

Neo, no matter his admirable flexibility for being able to convert at his age, was a _suit._ He dressed the part. Lived the part, too, according to his background file. Nothing more outstanding than the cyber-equivalent of jay-walking so far, and no part of her, quite in contrast to Morpheus, believed him capable of anything else. In no way, shape, or form could she imagine him sitting with them, loosed from his dowdy work clothes and clad in the black armor of the resistance. Morpheus wanted to remember what normal was like? Neo was about as normal as they came. 

"LOOK, DAMN YOU!!!" Baldy screeched-a feat she wasn't sure men with testicles were capable of-at his phone and to the rest of the patrons, startling both Neo and the girl at the register. Trinity raised an eyebrow. In about two more seconds of this, she might pull her gun just to do the world a favor; humans weren't all equal, not by a longshot, and some truly were too annoying to tolerate. 

"Hey." 

Trinity froze. A cross look settled onto Neo's previously blank facade. The other man ignored him, though he had lowered his tone since his outburst; as impossible as it seemed, he might just have realized that out-and-out screaming in public wasn't socially acceptable. 

"Hey," Neo repeated, his voice shaded with irritation and a notch louder. The man on the phone whirled to glare at him. 

"Yeah, yeah, hang on," Baldy closed his hand over the phone, "get lost, will you? This is important!" 

"Tone it down." 

Off to her side, Trinity heard Morpheus chuckle. Few people had the balls to tell perfect strangers to do anything, not as a request and certainly not in the commanding, no-nonsense tone Neo had just used. 

"Fuck off," was the man's reply before he returned to screaming at someone on the other end of the line. Neo's eyes narrowed, but he shrugged and looked away. 

That was it. No explosion of raw anger, definitely no show of any ability that might mark him as special in the way Morpheus had been using to search for his candidates. Neo assessed the situation and retired from it nonplussed yet unaffected. 

"Normal people," Morpheus mused, drawing her attention back to him, "normal people." He shook his head. 

"What about them?" 

"They don't stand up. They back away from confrontation. Look at him," Morpheus nodded at Neo, who'd resumed standing aloof from the situation, a half-dazed, half-asleep lethargy about his posture. "He's not one of us, you know. He's just a normal person." 

"One of us," Trinity agreed, "would have told him where to stick that phone." 

"He could have," Morpheus grimaced, seeming defeated, "he might have yelled back, might have kept on in that tone he used first." 

"But he didn't." 

"That was one of our moments. That cusp, that place and time where one can choose to challenge polite constraint for what's right or sink into obscurity because of a bully. It may seem an insignificant detail, a confrontation at a coffee shop..." he trailed off, waving his hand in the direction of the counter. 

"But it's always the little things," she supplied. They watched quietly as the bald man ranted, letting his anger fill the despondent silence between them. Morpheus might look on in wonder, but she could only see the whole thing as pathetic. _A slap in the face and more annoyance that is worth it_, but still, Neo and the customers queued behind him waited with strained patience for the moment they could escape this unwanted chance acquaintance. 

"Sir?" Another flustered minimum-wage employee tried to distract the customer long enough to indicate that his coffee was ready for him to pick up so he could-much to their relief, she imagined-leave. 

"One second!" He shouted and, as a final demonstration of his indignance, turned his back on the counter while swiping at his coffee. "Listen! LISTEN TO ME, GODDAMNIT..." he swore, oblivious to everything save his one-sided conversation. 

It happened in one of those split seconds that somehow played out in slow motion-just that _moment,_ just as the miserable man was spinning to grab his coffee and stalk off. A gasp caught in her throat as her eyes trailed along the length of Neo's arm. His long, delicate fingers curled into a steady, perfect fist, an action unnoticed by Neo himself. Not one breath later, the coffee lid exploded off the paper cup, dousing the irritable customer in near-boiling, bitter liquid. Some people on line clapped while the employees struggled to appear concerned. The man blinked stupidly as if he could not comprehend why he was suddenly drenched in the coffee that was meant to be safely contained within his cup, now crushed in his hand. 

"I take comfort in knowing, no matter my own disappointment with cosmic forces, that there _is_ some justice in the world." Morpheus' dry commentary reached her from some intangible distance, sounding miles away, accompanied by noises she recognized as him making ready to leave. A dutiful voice tried to command her legs to stand to follow him, to play good soldier to his general. 

It didn't matter. What Trinity saw in that short interval was enough. No sooner had the offensive little man sucked in a breath to begin a new tantrum then she had lost her own ability to breathe. The very second Neo recovered from his own shock at seeing what happened...he _smiled_. A touch mischievous, a bit triumphant, a smirk crept up one side of his face the merest fraction. And then disappeared as though it had never been. 

"Ready?" 

Was that Morpheus speaking? Trinity shook her head once, tossing short hair as the careless move morphed into an irrepressible shudder that wracked her from shoulder to sternum. A careless moment, a series of possibly coincidental gestures that, given the outcome, appeared highly circumstantial but nonetheless damning. Had Morpheus seen it? Did he know? Did he assume coincidence? 

"Did you..." Trinity licked her lips, her throat suddenly dry, paining her to swallow, "did you see that?" 

Morpheus was shaking his head. "I need you to see reason where I don't, you know that. Don't jump at shadows." 

"I just..." She couldn't finish a coherent sentence; her mind kept replaying the memory in reverse, reliving that transient smile on Neo's lips, before that, the concrete but absent display of his anger. And what appeared to be the consequence of his displeasure, it just..._Just what, Trinity?_ What could she tell Morpheus? He was right-_she_ wasn't the type to see meaning in the mundane. 

"I think we've learned all we can from this encounter. It's best we put it to better use on a more likely candidate." So used to having his judgments and orders followed, Morpheus turned immediately, not waiting to see her rising to leave with him. 

Trinity could not obey, could not force her body into the motions to follow him. There was only the looped track in her brain-Neo clenching his fist, the cup exploding, and the ephemeral grin lending him a thousand and one improvements to his overall physical appeal. While her body's reaction-or, rather, the Matrix's _approximation_ of her own attraction-stunned her, a nagging suspicion spoke louder still. 

_What was _that!? 

_It's nothing,_ she squeezed her eyes shut, standing abruptly, hands balling into fists at her side. _Ah, but it's not nothing, is it?_ the voice taunted, _it feels like _something,_ doesn't it?_ Throwing her instincts amiss, Trinity spun uneasily, teetering on her heels and strode away from her seat on a direct line for Morpheus' retreating back. He was rounding the corner as she caught up to him. 

Trinity could not do the same. Surreptitiously, she feigned an unfocused gaze over the temporary base of operations that she and Morpheus were abandoning; her eyes flew over the faceless folk in the chairs who had been her immediate neighbors for the better part of an hour and flicked up to where she'd last seen Neo. He was accepting his own coffee around the protests of a very irate, very _drenched_, very unsatisfied customer. 

At the precise moment that she dared to seek his face and he turned from the counter, a fleeting moment of connection sparked between them. A fractioned microsecond of blue on brown and then nothing as he continued on his path in the opposite direction and a wall of limestone invaded her line of sight. But even a fraction was long enough to give her chills and excite her paranoia. Had he seen her? Would he, months down the road, if he weren't permanently crossed off Morpheus' list, meet her in the real world and wonder? Say, "I know you"? 

Despite her silent protestations that it would never be so, the traitorous voice that seemed always to know better, laughed maniacally at her. _You see the future in that man._ She reasoned that this could be the case. Whatever goal Morpheus set for himself in this observation had been satisfied-maybe now they could determine who would go that extra mile Neo had not. _He's not the future. We learn the future by observing the failures of today. He's a lab rat we use to learn more about ourselves._

_Ah,_ the voice murmured poisonously, _is he?_

It said no more, preferring to lurk as a cloud of doubt that survived the transition through the phone line back to her real body. In some respects, the Matrix was all too real. That niggling voice of doubt remained and persisted, proving that paranoia was not an exclusive property of her real life. Though she attempted to drown it out with sleep, Trinity could not ignore her lingering suspicion that it was the voice of truth. 


	2. October 24th, 1997 11:45:23 pm CST

**10-24-97   
11:45:23 pm CST**

"Goddamn. Goddamn _cops_," he cursed, too hazy to know if he'd said it aloud or not, too pissed to care.

"Hey man, chill, we can take care of this." That was Sita, ever calm thanks to her multiple daily injections. The bangles threaded from and through both her ears and nose jingled softly as she stepped past him to squint bloodshot eyes at the large yellow boot strapped to the front wheel of his beat-up ride.

"They can't do that to a car like this. This car," Choi fished for a joint with spastic fingers, trying to make his mouth describe just _what_ his car was. "This car is a classic." Or it would have been if 'classic' stood for 'old jalopy barely holding together let alone running anymore.' It didn't matter-he flicked out his lighter and lit the end of the spliff-it was _his_ car. "Goddamned pigs. How's a man supposed to get where he's goin' with his car like this?"

"Mmm," DuJour purred, distracting him from the issue of the boot on his car to the matter of _her_ being on his car. It was something she was good at-distraction. Someone like him who had relatively little business in the day needed to pass the time. Either you shot up regular, like Sita and her surfer-boy-Choi had taken to calling him The Dude because _it_ _just fuckin' fits him, man-_or you popped a few and took the edge off the come down with _distractions_. Like DuJour.

"We can take care of this," Sita repeated.

"Take care of it," The Dude parroted, managing to make Sita sound half-lucid.

"Shit, you morons don't get it. I _need_ this baby," he leaned to stroke the cool black hood, but his hands found the inside of DuJour's thigh; luckily, she didn't seem to mind, even with the witnesses. "I _need_," he choked back desire as his fingers walked up DuJour's bare thigh to caress the skin beneath her almost negligible leather miniskirt. "I need this for _deliveries_."

"Let's call someone," Sita suggested, sounding bored.

"Call someone," said The Dude.

"Call who, Dude?"

This quickly silenced The Dude, who dropped his head, but where he was looking was anyone's guess. His nickname really fit him, especially with those damned sunglasses being constantly on his face. The guy wasn't that tan by a long shot, but Choi half-wondered if the skin under the glasses, if it was possible, wasn't paler still for _never _being exposed.

"Call Pony," Sita giggled, scratching The Dude behind the ear like a puppy.

"Pony," DuJour whispered. He gave her a suspicious look, which she ignored, placating him by forcibly moving his hands to the junction of her legs. While she pondered, he played, happily distracted, _again_, this time by her lack of underwear. "Pony?" She turned to Sita.

"I like to call him Pony."

"He like being ridden?"

"Hey," Choi gave her his best cross look even as he crouched for a better view of what he was doing. DuJour wasn't his alone by any means, but it didn't hurt to remind her who was her bread and butter these days.

"Let's find Pony, Choi," she murmured, sliding forward on the hood of his car. He couldn't believe his luck was changing so favorably. Up until DuJour firmly crossed her legs and shoved him backward onto his butt, that was. "You need the car, baby." He was inclined to disagree, given the rising tide of hormones, but logic won out. Resigned, he took a drag on his joint, steadying himself.

"Pony, right."


	3. August 27th, 1997

**08-27-97**

Neo might have been a hacker, but he was still only human. Hackers did not have a community as such, not _his _kind of hacker. Hacker circles only went so far, and the truth required sacrifice. Friends, real or digital, usually fell victim to the pursuit. He didn't miss those, not really.

No man could be an island forever, though. While search routines ran on his computer, he stared guiltily at the questions and responses posted to a chatroom in which he currently lurked. True to form, he never 'spoke' a word. Communication was exhausting. It was easier to watch and wonder about people, about who they became when no one could see them. Some pretended at confidence, others experience, still others naivete. All of them would inevitably switch off the computer and return to lives that were very much different from what they presented online. 

What must that be like? To be able to be two different people? In some way, they understood or just understood better than he did. He didn't 'switch off'; his computer lulled him to sleep and woke him in the morning, his only constant friend. Some part of him wanted to talk, to posit a question equally inane to the one ruling this chat at the moment-_would Tarantino's new film be as good as _Pulp Fiction, _and did anyone care?_-and see what happened. Wanted to interact with these people, some of whom, like him, had trouble interacting outside the safety of no-space.

But he'd _tried_ that. Tried it with people who didn't know their left mouse button from their right, tried it with people who did, learned from people who knew more than him, enjoyed that, and then...what? _Then stopped trying is what._ Somehow, he got it. When there was no more to 'get' out of a conversation, no new codes to learn, use, or break, no news you couldn't get on your own faster or first, no experience you envied or fancied, what was the point of talking? Just to hear his echo in the hollow world?

So, it had come to this. Back among the rubes because no one else was talking any sense among the elite. People who formed friendships with criminals inevitably were dragged down by them; he didn't care if those _he_ knew ended up in the mire, but he would die before he'd go down for anyone else. _Not me._ Plus, those guys were talking crazy. Literally. They kept going on and on about philosophies of existence. And, in the past few years, not too few of them had taken to suddenly _un-_existing. _All_ of them making perfect sense, which was why he'd pulled the plug. _When the insane start making sense, you've gone too far_.

Fear. Yes, Neo'd been _afraid_. Years and years ago, on holiday in New Zealand, he'd stepped out onto a bungy platform and chickened out. That was one step you couldn't step back from, and every instinct in his body screamed not to take that step-_don't go forward if you're not sure, buddy, 'cause you _can't_ go back_. Minus the hundred-plus feet of falling, he'd been in the same position a few months ago, and he'd stepped back. Paranoia invaded his life to an unhealthy degree as was-he couldn't shake the feeling someone was always looking over his shoulder. He wanted no part of making it worse.

And yet...and yet, here he was, at the proverbial beginning. Itching to learn again, to test his boundaries among the mundies and then go for a swim with the higher predators. To risk being shark bait in order to advance to being the rogue white pointer in a sea full of tiny guppies. But to chance being hooked? Too many of the former legends in this suicide sport disappeared all together, had vanished, especially since he'd gotten out of the game. Were they somewhere on the ends of fishermen's lines-in government lockup, or, worse, working for the enemy now?

  
[TheRedQueen has entered the room]   
[Jai] Hey TRQ   
[TheRedQueen] Hey Jai   
[Jai] Long time, babe. How's the family?   
[TheRedQueen] Fine, yours?   
[Jai] Been complaining about the little woman. Suspect she thinks I'm talking to girls.   
[TheRedQueen] You could be. What if I were a girl?   
[Jai] lol, not like you, TRQ, like cheating on her with girls, kinda   
[TheRedQueen] Hey, you lurkers, any _guuuuurlz_ out there? 

Neo blinked at the screen. God, had he really thought he could stand getting back into this relating-to-others crap? He hadn't taken that step yet. Back at the bungy, someone was screaming bloody murder as an attendant shoved them off the platform while he watched from the back of the line. It would test every last nerve he had to keep going. Not to mention his patience. He might grow too irritated to continue before his courage could get the chance to chicken out again.

  
[TheRedQueen] It's not like you can know who's who. I might not be a girl, you know.   
[CassityCleer] Yeah, I hate that. I liek fell in love with this guy, but it was just this chik.   
[TheRedQueen] Makes you wonder who you can trust.   
[Jai] I trust you guys.   
[TheRedQueen] Why?   
[Daz] He's stupid.   
[CassityCleer] Daz u suck   
[TheRedQueen] I think you shouldn't trust everything people say here.   
[Jai] Well, I don't, really   
[TheRedQueen] Because maybe I'm not a good girl, Jai.   
[TheRedQueen] Maybe I'm a terrorist. 

Neo laughed, the noise ringing in his empty apartment. The unwashed pots in the sink, the bare floors, and the clutter on his desk laughed back in a distorted parody of his voice. It sapped any amusement from his soul. For too long, he waited, shuddering and staring at the screen as TheRedQueen's last message took its effect upon the other chatters.

  
[Jai] That's not funny, TRQ.   
[TheRedQueen] It's true. I've killed people. I'm not a nice person, Jai   
[Daz] Jesus, Queen, you're a bitch. He's too stupid to know you're kidding   
[CassityCleer] omg, how could you say that? That's sooo not funny, Queen   
[TheRedQueen] I'm not joking.   
[TheRedQueen] Open your eyes, boys and girls. It's not a nice world out there. Sometimes, there are things worth dying for. Worth killing for.   
*_moderator has banned TheRedQueen*_

__"Jesus," Neo whistled. People were taking it so seriously. In a bizarre way, he shared their sense of confusion and betrayal over TheRedQueen's sudden shift into uncomfortable honesty. _Is she telling the truth?_ Who was he to have any idea? He wasn't a terrorist. Hacking wasn't terrorism. Criminal, maybe-he could live with criminal. But terrorism meant hurting people, and he didn't give enough of a damn about anyone to help _or_ hurt them. You had to have a reason to want to kill people.   
  
[Daz] woo-hoo, Queen's taken a walk off the deep end   
[Jai] that wasn't funny. this is like a family, and she just flipped out   
[CassityCleer] i don't get it, y would she do that?   
[TheRedQueen] Because I believe in the truth.   
[Daz] !!!   
[Daz] You're back?   
[TheRedQueen] I never left.   
[Jai] Go away TRQ. You're being all weird. sort out whatever's bothering you...   
[CassityCleer] Queen, i think u should apologize   
[TheRedQueen] I don't answer to you. I'm interested in people capable of recognizing reality for what it is. Or isn't. 

There was a strange rattling in his apartment. He wondered if it wasn't the air-conditioning before realizing it was him, nervously tapping a pen against his keyboard. The pen fell from his hand when he looked at it, and he fisted it to keep still, bracing it on the desk.   
  
[TheRedQueen] You know what I mean. You're just afraid.   
[Daz] You are soooo bounced, Queen.   
[TheRedQueen] Look for those who know the truth. We _do_ have history.   
*_moderator has banned TheRedQueen*_

When he looked at his hand again, Neo saw his knuckles were white, as was, he imagined, most of his face as the blood rushed away. _TheRedQueen_. Wasn't a name he could recall from his previous forays into the closed circle of hacking. Someone new, someone keen to make him or herself well known. For what reason? Mundies didn't understand the reality of a hacker lifestyle. You stayed anonymous or you got nabbed. Advertising in public forums attracted attention in all the wrong ways. The mundies were not sympathetic to hackers, nor were they silent. All it took was one moronic purist to report you to an ISP's watchdog, and, on a fluke, a halfway decent code man would be dragged off to jail because he'd gotten cocky on AOL. Just like Al Capone, the lesser crime would be what got you nailed. However, unlike old Al, once they had reason to suspect you, they could seize your computer, get it _all_, and then you were _really _in trouble.

_But_...

He stared at the rapidly scrolling text as the other chatters posted furiously, trying to come to terms. They would walk away mad, or sign off mad, or whatever it was normal people did. TheRedQueen hadn't been talking to them, hadn't cared who she-_he? it?-_offended because the mundies weren't the target. A sickly feeling of destiny stirred in his stomach, and Neo didn't like it. In fact, he loathed that feeling, a sense something else was steering him. It was the dread he felt right before succumbing to temptation, before losing control and going on a _serious _binge.

_But..._

When he raised his hands to hover over the keys, they were shaking. His gut twisted once, sharply. TheRedQueen knew people like him were out there-_You know what I mean. You're just afraid. _It was a challenge. A grimace settled on his lips, and he clenched his teeth. He did _not_ back down from challenges. If he backed down again, he'd be stuck in the endless lather-rinse-repeat cycle between the ignorant and the elite.

Neo took a deep breath and ran screaming for the edge of the platform. He imagined himself falling as he'd never done, looking up at his feet, at the safety and security of solid ground. Only once he was falling did he stop to wonder if he'd taken the time to tether himself to the place he was rapidly leaving behind.


	4. December 21st, 1997

**12-21-97**  
  


"I surrender," Ghost chuckled.

His sister had him pinned on his back. His palms were to the sky, her fist was at his throat. On the surface of things, it might appear ludicrous for a woman to pull punches against a man; fortunately, Ghost was not one to be concerned with mere appearances.

"That makes it what, twenty to one? Two-hundred, maybe."

"I think you may be exaggerating that score," he smiled as she straightened. He accepted her hand and let her pull him to his feet. Construct fights might be a guilty pleasure, but he cherished the time with his sister. She was always a welcome intrusion into his meditations, as much a part of his private time as everyone else was meant _not_ to be.

Trinity's defiant grin made him laugh. "I never exaggerate."

"No, of course not. Heaven forfend. Just like I never pull my punches. Least I can say I've never _really_ hit a girl."

"Watch it," she snapped, arms folding across her chest. The long PVC gloves slid along one another, friction causing an audible rub. This brought him up short. Inside the world of his personal processing unit, they sparred, baited one another, but never actually fought. Unwanted stress got left behind at the jack-in port. There was no call for a temper here, where no one was listening, where it was just them. They could gripe about anything and everything that might sound taboo or seditious to the higher-ups in Zion and the Resistance. It was supposed to be a place to vent, not simmer. And, usually, Trinity told him what she couldn't tell anyone else.

"What?" She seemed to notice his surprise and surveying look.

"What's eating you?"

"Nothing," she leaned backwards, bracing herself against one of the rocks in his garden with one foot, leaving her other leg stretched out. A deep frown and the creases in her forehead belied her answer. He waited until she looked at him again, mouth ticking up in a beloved smirk. "Can't hide anything from you, huh?"

"Things on the _Neb_ not going so well?"

"No, not that," she shook her head, "well, actually, a little yeah. We lost another one a few days before we got back to Zion."

That explained her distraction. Ironically, he might have made a better second to the legendary captain of the _Nebuchadnezzar_ than his sister. He embraced the metaphysical prophecy that was the stalwart of Zion's faith; Trinity supported _Morpheus_, revered his methods instead of his madness. The same could be said of him and Niobe. So, in each their own way, they were following a priest of a religion to which they did not subscribe. Their choices perhaps proved the common adage of opposites attracting, but he could see the toll that Morpheus' didactic, grandiose style was taking on his sister.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"He...Lucid," she corrected herself, "Lucid was Morpheus' 'new' candidate."

" 'New'? Meaning...?"

"Different," Trinity shrugged, a gesture at once nonchalant and confused. "I don't know, he got it into his head that he needed to look for people who weren't..."

"Gods among men?" Ghost chuckled as she raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Morpheus is looking for the proverbial 'king of kings,' and he has realized that he won't find him on a throne but in a manger, to borrow the metaphor," he bowed slightly, grinning. His commentary on the mythos of religion never ceased to irritate his sister. She claimed not to believe in God, nor any of the theological teachings she'd absorbed in the Matrix, though, on some fundamental level, she retained them.

This time she did not smile. She looked away. "He didn't even tell Lucid why we freed him."

"Why not?"

"He wanted to see if Lucid would adopt the mantle, I suppose," she shrugged. Ghost watched her play with her hands for a moment. He started when it hit him, which drew her attention away from her hands. "What?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize. You and he were close?"

Trinity snorted. "God, you _are_ just like family, Ghost." She placed her hands firmly on her hips. "Yes, little _brother_, I was fucking him. If you'd stop being a prude, you'd live a lot longer."

"Sex doesn't seem to be making _you_ happy," he retorted immediately, realizing too late that the barb struck too deep for their usual banter. Trinity didn't flinch externally, but he knew better to think he hadn't hurt her. Which was not his intention. _Ever_. No matter what choices she made in her life, Trinity would always have his love, and he'd sooner kill himself than intentionally hurt her. "I'm sorry." 

It seemed lame by way of an apology between two who shared so much, but Trinity shook her head. "Don't be. You're right. It was just sex. It happens on ships," she looked him over once before adding, "usually."

He accepted her taunt graciously by means of further apology, a payback for his carelessness. "You don't seem that upset about losing him."

"I _am_ upset, but not really because of anything about Lucid personally, you know?" He shook his head; honestly, he didn't have any clue, that's what celibacy _meant_. Trinity shrugged again, seeming unaffected, as if she'd long ago decided how she felt on the matter. "I didn't want him to die, but it was more about what it meant for us that he didn't end up making it."

"What _does_ it mean, Trinity?"

"It means we failed. Again." She kicked at the ground, sending a small shower of pebbles scattering away from her booted toe. "God, I don't know if I can keep doing this."

"Lives are lost in war. It is an unfortunate part of the definition of 'war,' you know." He resisted the urge to hug her; it wasn't a gesture they often shared, nor was it one she needed now. It wasn't that kind of hurt. Despondency could not be fixed with a simple embrace.

"I know," she tilted her head to the artificial sky. She was silent a long moment before continuing, "I'm not sure I can keep trying for Morpheus. Keep pretending that it's not driving me up the wall to see him get excited about someone we free and then forgetting about them as soon as they fail to be what he wants them to be."

"That's not fair."

"No, she laughed without mirth, "you're right, it's not. He does mourn. He takes responsibility. I just get frustrated that he's not really trying to change the way he goes about this."

"It would be like telling a zebra to change its stripes, though, right?"

"Yeah, probably," Trinity muttered, finally sinking down to sit, her back against the rock, arms crossed at the wrists atop her bent knee. Ghost cartwheeled up to a one-handed handstand, hopping on his supporting palm so he faced her. She squinted up at him behind her shades. "Doesn't all the blood rush to your head when you do that?"

"It's not real," he chided, then shrugged-a difficult thing to do upside down-and grinned. "Yes, actually, but the point of meditation is to overcome the limitations of the body to center the mind."

"Centering your mind means convincing yourself that you don't feel gravity here?"

"Something like that. But don't change the subject."

"Right." Trinity snatched at a few pebbles, tossing and catching them in the palm of her gloved hand. "What were talking about?"

"Lucid, Morpheus, the ever elusive One. Your choice, sister, dear."

"They're all sort of related." She paused, and when she spoke again, she sounded far away. "I even thought maybe this time Morpheus was right."

"And here I thought you were losing faith in his choices."

"It's not that," Trinity sounded noncommital. "I can't take this constant cycle of getting my hopes up only to be disappointed. It's not me."

That was true. It _wasn't_ her. Trinity wanted proof-_excitement on delivery thereof_, he laughed to himself. The converse problem was hers, too; once she _was_ convinced or hopeful, she invested so much of herself into her hopes. Years ago, when he had been freed, he had visited Zion for the first time and met his sister in the flesh. At that first meeting, both disoriented and somewhat in shock, they found comfort and assumed kismet in the simple fact that they'd been freed on the exact same day. Their real-world 'birthday.' It hadn't meant as much to him since. He loved her, she related to him as a sister. It frustrated any other hopes he had for their relationship, her tendency to see things one way, black-and-white, her intractability. A person was a surrogate family member, a friend, a lover, or a stranger, and, with Trinity, it took a great deal for one to evolve from her categorizations. If Morpheus promised her the One, Ghost knew that it would have to be a constant shock to have that promise broken.

"With Lucid, I though maybe it could be different."

"Because he didn't expect anything of himself?"

"Because I..." Whatever she'd been about to confess, she apparently reconsidered, waved it off. "Never mind."

"Trinity." She met his eyes without hesitation. "Nothing leaves here that you don't want to, you know that." _You can tell me. I won't judge you, and _you know that, _too_. No one else offered her that comfort; it was hard to have close friends on a ship, knowing one day you might have to leave them behind, or, worse, kill them for the good of the whole. It made sharing secrets, to one such as Trinity, a waste of time. What good did it do you if you had to go back to pretending that friend was just another solider on your next run? Ghost distanced himself from crewmembers as a matter of course. They were still his friends, and he would fight to save their lives, but he couldn't say what Niobe's favorite color was or whether their operator had any family. _Well, he's new, so maybe in time, _Ghost shook that thought as he realized that it took him a moment to remember the new operator's _name_.

"I liked him, Ghost."

"Seriously?" It was not a question of his disbelief but of hers.

"I thought so for a while."

"Now you don't." It wasn't a question _at all_.

"Damned if I know, Ghost." Trinity sounded pissed. At least she dressed the part, though her next words were slightly colored with helplessness. "I have no idea what that old woman meant."

The Oracle. Yet another secret that never left their sparring sessions, and one Ghost felt especially privileged to know. How could he? It made him feel guiltyas _he_ had not shared (not entirely) with her what the Oracle had told him. Trinity told the Oracle's prediction of her future years ago, when she was still green enough to have shared something like that with him. Ghost doubted she would have told him if she had only just gone to the Oracle recently. The Trinity that latched onto him as a girl had quickly grown up in the real world. He considered himself fortunate to have her confidence on so personal matter.

"You thought he might be the One."

"That's just it," Trinity pushed her sunglasses up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "I liked him well enough. I was attracted to him, obviously."

"Duh," Ghost smiled, sticking his tongue out at her when she flipped him off. It earned him a begrudging smirk in return, which was well worth the rude gesture.

"I'm not a romantic, Ghost. I get how to work with people, how to get the job done. I have no idea how I'm supposed to go about falling in love. I don't even know if I can remember what that's like. I left that complication behind in the Matrix. Haven't 'loved'"-somehow she pronounced the quotes around the word-"since."

"But..." he prompted, shifting and switching hands without taking his eyes from her.

"But I did care about Lucid. Like how I feel about you, only I wanted to sleep with him, too." Ghost tried to pass off his wince as one of physical pain; he envied Lucid for having what he had always known he couldn't have: Trinity's affection. "I love you, little brother, however little you deserve it," she cast a knowing glance at him. "So, if that's not love, I'm at a loss to what is."

"She didn't say _how_ you would love the One, did she?" The thought really had only just occurred to him, but Ghost cursed himself a fool for not thinking of it sooner. "The Oracle rarely speaks unambiguously, Trin."

"Perhaps."

"She may understand your capacity for and understanding of love and apply it to mean something other than romantic involvement. She never speaks the direct truth." _Ah, truer words never spoken_, he gritted his teeth against the pain; the Oracle had never _precisely_ told him Trinity would never love him the way he wanted, but, he could read between the prophecy and find his destiny.

" 'She can help you find the path.' "

"Pardon?"

"It's what Morpheus said to me the day Roland took me in to see her." Roland must have been only too glad to get rid of Morpheus if, even at that time, the man was spouting such phrases. Ghost wondered if Roland lamented Trinity's decision to follow Morpheus onto his own ship. _If he knew what you knew, he wouldn't_, a voice laughed in his head. Poor Roland. No pity for the straightlaced. They didn't want pity, either, they wanted results without bullshit; he faced everyday on the _Logos_-his metaphysics were _not_ welcome or open to discussion around Niobe.

"I think she meant romantically. It's too easy for him to just be a friend." She smiled up at him, "Or you."

"I can assure you it's not me. Much to my regret, I must disappoint you." And only he would know just _how much_ it disappointed him.

"So, what then?"

"I wish I had your answer, sister, dear."

She balked at this. "No witty quotations? No words of wisdom from long-dead scholars?

"In case you hadn't noticed, the study of love has not been mine to undertake in this lifetime. I seek to transcend the body, not to remain a slave to it."

"So, I'm a slave, am I? Them's _fighting_ words, little brother." Trinity rolled fluidly into a crouch and stood, hands automatically fisting at her sides. Ghost cocked his head, bent his arm, and pushed against the rock. His momentum carried him backwards to face her on his feet, the rock between them. His hands came up, palms open, one extended towards Trinity, the other bent to protect his chest. Trinity mirrored him, her hands still in fists. "Whenever you're ready," she called, feigning sweetness, "it's your ass."

"We'll see." 

And the dance began again.


	5. October 25th, 1997 12:38:21 am CST

**10-25-97  
12:38:21 am CST**

Pony, like many of the not-strictly-criminal denizens of Choi's world, did not have a cell phone. Cell phones were a mark of status, for good or for ill. If you had one and you took it out with you to a club it meant you dealt or you posed-either you were like him, Choi figured, or you were trying to slum it for a night, pretend you could live the goth and gutter life without losing your lifeline to the suburbs or wherever. None of his customers carried, but then his customers preferred not to have his number on their phones.

Not having a cell phone had its drawbacks-_like when you have to locate the bastard_, Choi grumbled. Sita took a few slaps to come up with the name of another club Pony might be patronizing this evening, but DuJour was more than up to getting the information out of her. Best part was getting to watch, Choi smiled around a cigarette. Unfortunately for DuJour-and him-Sita's next guess turned out to be correct. 'Pony' turned out to be a guy who vaguely appeared to have considered being a drag queen at some point, then, incompletely, _re_considered. He had bleach-blonde wig in a scruffy approximation of a pageboy cut, heavily made up eyes, and a pretty boy smile. Pony's nickname reflected his tendency to use his riding crop on any ass that passed by him and inviting anyone he struck to whip him back. He all but squealed like horse, too, when he saw Sita sashaying towards him.

"Ooh, baby!"

"Pony!" Sita wiggled her fingers out in front of her; without hesitation, Pony handed her the crop and presented her with his rear end. "Go faster, Pony," Sita admonished, letting loose with the crop. Pony moaned between the _thwacks_ from leather on leather.

Choi clenched his teeth. "C'mon, Sita, we're supposed to be here on business."

"Ooh, more jockeys?" Pony turned his head to look Choi up and down. "Pony."

"I _get_ it," Choi rolled his eyes. "Choi." He didn't extend a hand to the other man but sized him up noticeably. It wasn't like him to be this way, and he knew it, but, man, some things just needed to get done tonight. And he needed his car. And if Sita dragged him out all this way for nothing...

"Whatchoo need, boyo?"

Caught by surprise, he stuttered, "A ca-car."

"I don't got a car up my sleeve, lover."

"No, no," Choi shook his head. "I need _my_ car."

"So, go get it."

"See that's the thing," Choi scratched at his stubble. Either Pony was an idiot, or he played the part really well. "_Somebody_ went and put a lock over it."

"Parking tickets," Pony said and nodded knowledgeably, taking the crop from Sita, encircling her with it by holding the ends in both his hands. "You need a city man to take it off for you?"

"You know someone?"

"Nope."

"Fantastic." He rounded on The Dude because he didn't feel like distracting Sita. "Well, that was really helpful, thanks."

"Pony?" The Dude sounded scared.

"You need a city man to take it off," Pony laughed, half dancing, half grinding against Sita. "That don't mean he's gotta know you to do it."

"English?"

Pony slipped from Sita's grip to cha-cha his way over to DuJour. Choi sighed, leaning back so DuJour could step forward. She did so, dragging her clawed fingertips down Pony's chest, displaying all her teeth in a predatory snarl.

"What does he need to know?"

"Hmm?" Pony hummed, pressing his nose and forehead against DuJour's.

"If I don't need to know a guy, and he doesn't need to know me, what does he need to know to get the fucking boot of my wheels, man?"

"Gotta get to the little black box," Pony purred.

"A _computer_," DuJour whimpered as Pony ran the crop up and down her thighs.

"What the hell does a computer do for me?"

"Ah-ah-ah," Pony tut-tutted, waggling his finger in what _he_ thought was a suggestive manner-Choi just found it creepy and uninteresting. "The computer tells the city man what to do. Machines," Pony tickled DuJour's chin, "they tell us what to do. Don't gotta put coins in if the meter tells the maid it's full, baby."

"It can do that?" Sita squeaked incredulously.

"Can it?" The Dude aped.

Choi gave Pony a hard look. He was a drug-dealer, there was no beating about the bush on that score. But some part of him was, well, _old-fashioned._ If you needed someone to do you a minor legal 'favor,' you gave them a hit here and there, or rolled them the cash for a debt or a luxury they couldn't afford otherwise. Part of him needed that reassurance that, even though people could be fallible, they could at least be held responsible if things didn't move and shake, so to speak.

_Computers, though_. They weren't real. The information in them wasn't _real_. You couldn't hold it in your hand, the value of it versus his typical measures of wealth-drugs and money-was a mystery. Could you say that so much information was worth so many pills? How did you determine it? _And wouldn't I have to know how to get my name onto the computer? I don't work with those...things_. 

His helplessness must have showed because Pony was grinning. "All you need is the man with his hands on the keys." 

Great. _Pony to the rescue_. "And you know a guy who works in the records department or something?"

"You're thinking small time, drug man," Pony wagged his finger again. "You think you need the man with the access."

"Who _do_ I need, Pony?"

"The man who makes his_ own _access_,_ boyo," Pony fought spasms of laughter as DuJour traced his sides with the tips of her fingernails. Sita looked entirely satisfied, trilling happily as she and The Dude petted each other. If she was content, the whole thing was over for The Dude, game, set, match. Choi noticed he was rapidly becoming the odd man out on whatever joke it was that Pony had told.

"You want to spell it out for me, Pony? Nobody listening," he threw his hand in the direction of a seething mass of people ignoring them in favor of the DJ.

"_Pony_," DuJour's tone was sharp, as was Pony's intake of breath. Her wandering hands had settled on his chest; when she had said his name, DuJour had scratched one long bloody swath across his exposed pectorals. "Pony," she repeated as if scolding a child. "Pony."

"You need a console jockey, sweetness."

"And where do we find one of those?" Choi tried to will Pony to hear his thoughts: _quit wasting my time_.

"Gotta find the right guy," Pony shuddered as DuJour dug her nails into his chest again. He cast what passed for a subtle look in the direction of the crowded bar. Choi scanned the sea of arms waving twenties at the barkeeps and the few sad sacks who'd taken up permanent residence on the bar stools. _Jesus,_ Choi fought to keep from rolling his eyes, _which one?_

"Got one in _mind,_ Pony?" DuJour's grin spoke nothing of amusement; she had Pony pinned like some ruddy great cat, licking her lips, grinning. If this paid off, he was putting her on his fucking _payroll_ as his personal enforcer. There were thugs who got things done, and then there was DuJour-she spoke their language, pushed the right buttons, and, at the end of the day, was there for a little stress relief. Very important in his line of work.

"Maybe I go see if he's interested?"

"_Maybe_," DuJour whispered, licking the underside of his chin. That meant 'yes,' and Pony took off like a shot. Choi watched him weave his way through bodies that wanted to rub more than they wanted to part for him. The crowd closed over the path he cut, and Pony vanished.

"This for real?" He looked to DuJour.

"He thinks so."

"Yeah?"

"Get with the times, Choi," Sita cackled.

"The times," said The Dude.

"What times would those be, Sita?"

"Today, hon, today."

DuJour wrapped her arms around his neck. Always working, his girl. "Can't hurt to try new things, mmm?" She dipped her head to the hollow of his throat and licked a straight line up to his forehead. When she finished, she met his stunned eyes with her flashing dark ones. "Yum."

"Where's Pony?"

"Do you care?"

"Not..._too_ much," he admitted.

He didn't have to wait long, however. Whoever Pony thought he could get, he returned alone, and, for the first time, _afraid_. Of DuJour, probably.

"Got a name from this guy," Pony jerked his head at no one they could see. "An address." Nothing written, either on paper or on Pony. _Cautious_. Choi liked that. Cautious people like him stayed in business.

"Let's _roll_," Sita jumped up and out of The Dude's grasp.

"How do we know this is for real?"

Pony shook his head. "We make a call, see?"

No, he did _not_ see. "Why can't we just call from _here_?" He fingered his cell phone, tucked away in his coat pocket.

"Said it wouldn't work."

"Who said?"

"This guy."

"Right." This felt like a run around.

"C'mon, Choi, let's go," Sita whined, tugging on The Dude because she would never dare do it to him. He glowered at her, then glanced down at DuJour, but she had Pony pinned with her eyes. Pony looked excited but no longer scared-that _probably_ meant he wasn't afraid of the consequences, which _probably_ meant he thought he was telling the truth. That was good enough for him. One night of wasted business to the suburbs cost him _too_ much to do much else at this point. If Pony let him down, he'd take the money off Pony. It was that simple.

Choi rolled his eyes at Sita and glared at Pony. "Yeah, let's head out to an _address_ to make a _call_ to a _name_ you got from _this guy_. You see where I'm going with this Pony?"

"I got it, boss-man."

"You _get it_, Pony?" DuJour growled. Pony drooled all over himself at the look she gave him.

"I got it."


	6. October 11th, 1997

**10-11-97**

When she walked into the canteen, Switch startled the hell out of Mouse. His spork went flying when she wrenched the door open behind his turned back. He retrieved it, not even wiping it off before resuming his meal.

"Hey."

"Hey," she returned the greeting with a dip of her head and seated herself across from him. "Quit slouching."

"Yes, ma'am," he intoned sulkily, sitting up. By no means his surrogate mother, Switch knew she enjoyed no small amount of authority over their youngest crew member. She returned his adulation with a patient tenderness she extended to precious few; consequently, when she noticed the bags under his eyes, she took it to heart.

"Hey."

"What now?"

"You losing sleep, kid?"

"Don't call me that," he pouted. A mischievous glint was in his eyes. "You could say that, though."

"Neighbors?"

"Yup," Mouse smiled around a spoonful of slop. Switch rolled her eyes at him; he was cute, but his obsession with sex, specifically the sexual activities of his crewmates, was pathetic. "Been arguing again. That guy is _loud_."

Switch nodded, stood, and poured herself some water. Lord, she wished Dozer's moonshine was in the canteen, but Morpheus only turned a blind eye to the contraband so long as it was out of sight. Which meant Dozer hid it in caches, his room, the engine room, a few select pockets in the Core; it only flowed freely at parties, of which there had been precious few.

"What about?"

"I never hear _her_ side of it," Mouse affected _dis_affection, but his eyes flashed as he shared the gossip. "He thinks she's too frigid, not open with him, blah blah blah." Mouse shoveled more slop into his mouth. "Doesn't realize how lucky he is," he muttered.

"Surprise of my life, that," Switch chugged her water, imagining the biting metallic taste of the cup to be the alcoholic sting of moonshine.

"The guy's lasted pretty long, all things considered," Mouse shrugged.

"Meaning as another one of Morpheus' proteges?"

"There's nothing different about him, and it's been _months_, Switch."

"Relax, I agree." And that was the thing about their relationship-she said 'jump,' he made like a frog. He relaxed back into a slouch until he caught her eye. When next she brought her cup up and down for a sip, she saw the glint had returned to his eyes. "What?"

"He was gonna go to Morpheus about her."

Switch nearly spat water into Mouse's face. With great difficulty, she swallowed, gagging, coughing, and sputtering. Mouse watched with his largest, goofiest grin. She took a moment to recover then tossed him an incredulous look.

"What kind of stupid bastard is he?"

"That's what I wanna know."

"About what?"

"Her dissemination of information to coppertops," Mouse pronounced the words slowly, enunciating carefully, nose screwed up in concentration. It was a fair imitation of Lucid, she had to concede.

"He presumes he knows better?" Switch wasn't by any means Trinity's best friend, but she trusted the second-in-command a lot farther than a fuzz-head free not even half a year.

"She's been dabbling where she shouldn't, you know," he confided conspiratorially, leaning over the table towards her. "I come on after and I check the logs. She's been trolling the net, spreading the gospel."

"No harm done there," Switch shrugged. It was part of their job to do that much and more. The only disclaimer was that such activities were regulated, and, at the very least, reported to the captain of the ship. There were plenty of little things everyone pulled, operating just below the radar while Morpheus ran around with his head up the Oracle's ass.

"_He_ seems to think she's been talking to some passovers." Passover was just a technical term, like coppertop, and every bit as derogatory. Once a candidate was determined to be unsalvageable, he was a dead file, a 'passover.' It was too dangerous to go back for them, lest their prior interest tip off the Matrix's Agents. If the Agents hadn't noticed last time, the odds were good they would the next, so there never _was_ a next time. Talking to them, if unethical, wasn't strictly off-limits.

"Still, not a crime."

"I think," Mouse's voice dropped lower, "I think he's _jealous_."

"_That_," Switch smiled over the lid of her cup, "I can understand. He say _who_ she's been talking to?"

"Nah," Mouse waved his hand. That trivial information wasn't important; rumors thrived on intrigue, not facts. Switch nodded and said nothing, giving it a thinking-through. How many passovers were on the_ Neb_'s list? Not too many. While Morpheus focused on those he wanted to be the One, most of the candidates were passed to other ships, where they were subsequently freed or killed. At least, that she knew of-Apoc had a hard on for collecting pointless information like that and sharing it with her. _Passovers_, she mused, _passovers._

"I don't think he's our guy, Switch."

"You and me both."

"So, what do we do?"

"Nothing." Switch slipped from the bench, tossing her cup into the sink. She turned back at the door hatch. "I'm supposed to do a run with him in an hour. This gonna affect his performance?"

"I don't think Trinity had any complaints about his _performance_," Mouse waggled his eyebrows.

"_Thanks_," Switch snorted and stepped out through the hatch. Going into the Matrix was no fool's errand, and she'd rather not have anyone going with her in anything less than top form. Worry that Lucid's inability to handle Trinity's emotional distance would complicate her run dogged her heels all the way up the ladder to the Core. Cypher was at the monitoring station looking bored. He swivelled in his chair when he heard her clanking along the floor.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"God, tell me you're coming to relieve me early."

"Don't count on it," she muttered. "I'm going in soon. I wanted to be sure our drop was clear."

"I'm saying this for the last time: the drop is _clear_."

The exasperation in his voice brought her up short. Cypher wore an extremely vexed expression, that of a man on his last nerve. It took her all of a second to deduce why.

"Lucid's been here."

"Oh, Lucid's been here," Cypher threw his hands up in frustration, "and been here, and been here, and been here one more time on top of all that." He ran one hand from the back of his bald head towards the front, an angry twitch of his. "I swear, he comes in here one more time, I'm gonna break his legs and set up his drop at the bottom of the ocean." He did a pantomime of a phone with one hand and shouted at it, "That clear enough?"

"Knock it off," Switch managed through a few hurumphs of laughter. "It's my neck on the line in there with him, not yours."

"Ah, even better," Cypher smiled, "you can off him in the name of saving your own skin at the most convenient time. I'd stay on monitor duty an extra few hours for that."

It was a joke, but she couldn't bring herself to share his mirth. Given the depressing rate of turnover on their ship, any sort of joking about death was in especially bad taste. Cypher had never been known for his _good_ taste, but even he had limits, surely. Switch's mood soured with the thought of Lucid attempting any of the stupid moves that had gotten previous potentials killed-_if I so much as smell an Agent on a coppertop_... 

All they had to do was make an appearance in Edinburgh-her old stomping grounds-so Lucid could be seen with her. No one would recognize him, but her notoriety might augment his by association. Everyone needed a following. And to get one, you needed to stay _alive._ Given that Lucid was fresh off a tiff with Trinity and bound to be distracted, she did _not_ appreciate Cypher's humor. He resumed looking bored in a hurry as she glared at him. His expression only changed when he turned at the sound of footsteps on the ladder; Cypher groaned audibly when he saw who it was.

"What!?" Lucid cried defensively upon this reception.

"It's _clear_. It's so _clear _it's cloudy, get it? Buzz off, why don't you?"

"Switch is here," Lucid answered evenly. On the whole, Lucid wasn't an awful guy. _Something_ about him had to appeal to Trinity. Maybe it was his naivete, who knew? At the moment, however, Switch was having a very hard time understanding Morpheus' new policy of 'extraordinary things in ordinary packages.'

"Yeah, it's my first time. Makes a big difference for the person doing the scanning, Lucy."

"Don't call me that, _please_," he sighed. It was an unfortunate moniker Cypher coined months ago, reserved for just such occasions where he deserved being taken down a peg. And he knew it, and so softened his approach. "I'm just not sure about this. Whether I'm ready to be famous, and all. Not like you guys."

"You'll get used to it," Cypher called over his shoulder; he'd returned, dutifully resuming his task. It took balls to admit you were scared, especially in the real world where the majority of one's time was spent pretending that was exactly not the case.

"Relax," she waved off his concern, "nothing too extreme, not yet. Just a bit of cat and mouse in a dive or two, and we exit. Won't take but half an hour, a full hour at most."

"This really helps you appear uncatchable?"

"Helps fan the flames," Cypher supplied, "you know, romanticizes this bullshit."

"Ignore the cynic," she instructed Lucid. "He's got a point, but this is about keeping our profiles high so people keep looking. Do you know how many appearances Morpheus had to put in to get where he is today?" Switch knew-_hundreds_. Morpheus had practically invented the ghosting run; it confused the Agents, threw them off the track to have a rebel appear somewhere for apparently no reason, and it _did_ lend them an aura of mystery that provoked the questions that needed asking.

"Don't remind me," Lucid rolled his eyes.

"Ooh, had a fight with the missus?" Cypher teased. Switch bit her lip to keep from commenting. It took a woman to notice these things, usually; men typically preferred Trinity over her-for which she admitted some jealousy-giving her plenty of time for introspection. She assumed she was the only one-Trinity included-who knew how jealous Cypher was of Trinity's sporadic lovers during his tenure on the _Neb_. Most were gone, staying just long enough for Morpheus to transfer them off or to jump ship of their own volition. A few were dead because of no more than the law of averages and rotten luck.

"Knock it off." Lucid grumbled without finality. Cypher's throwaway comment was the intro he needed to get whatever it was off his chest. "It's just that she's _always_ reminding me how famous he is. _Morpheus_ this, and _Morpheus_ that. God, am I missing something? She used to be his girlfriend before he got wedded to this prophecy nonsense?" Switch fought a knowing smile. Only one so ignorant of his own position in that 'nonsense' could have made such a comment.

"Nah, never been like that. Admires his work, that's about it. That's all she ever really admires," Cypher looked Lucid over coldly, "well, _usually_." He stretched, patting her on the shoulder. "If you've got problems, ol'Doc Switch here is keen to hear them out. Busy work, you know, keeping an exit _clear_," he emphasized.

"I got it, I got it," Lucid held his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

"Go get some food before we go," Switch offered.

"I'm really nervous." Lucid sounded it, too.

"Good, that means you're taking this seriously." She crossed her arms. "Go eat. You get sick, you'll just feel better."

"You've got to be kidding."

"I'm in charge when we're inside, and I'm pulling rank here. Go."

Off he went. Switch waited till the loud scraping of the mess hall door signaled that Lucid had followed her orders. Then she tilted her head to throw a look at Cypher, who guffawed at her exaggerated features.

"Glad I'm not going in with him."

"Lucky you." She shook her head. After a moment, she asked, "You know anything about Trinity talking to passovers recently?" Cypher met her gaze for all of a second, but it was enough. _Guilty_, she smirked triumphantly. Mouse kept an eye on Trinity because of his overactive imagination and underused sex drive. Cypher wasn't too far removed from that; his fixation on Trinity was simply more specific.

"I check the logs, yeah."

"So it's true?"

"She keeps using that Red_Queen alias."

"Ah," Switch said, not sure how to respond. Certain all-purpose aliases-ones not directly connected to their real names-were used to prod candidates along the path. Red_Queen was one that Morpheus and Trinity had shared until Morpheus bequeathed it to Trinity as her very own. It was the one Trinity used on her first solo recruitment. It went belly up when an Agent possessed the recruit; it was kill or be killed at that point, and Trinity never even flinched when she chose her own survival.

"She and Morpheus have this real hang up on _Alice in Wonderland_," she wondered aloud.

"As far as books about bad trips go, I always liked _The Wizard of Oz_ better."

"Right, so tell me, _TinMan_, what's Red_Queen up to? I thought she dropped it after that first run."

"Don't ask me," Cypher yawned, "I just read logs, not minds."

"Who's she been talking to?"

"Just this one chat group a couple of months ago, a few hacker check points." He tried to pass off this rather detailed summary as one disinterested; it didn't work because she knew better. "Leaving little clues, you know, 'eat me,' 'drink me,' 'through the looking glass.' God, I hate that one. They start talking rabbit holes, I'm moving to Zion."

"Anyone we know in these areas?" Another guilty look crossed Cypher's face. _Ah-ha,_ she seized on the expression,_ Trinity's been talking to some one he recognizes, a name we've passed over._ "Well? Out with it. I don't want to be the last one in the loop." A smug smile rested on her lips-for once, she'd have something to tell Apoc _first_.

"So, maybe I cross-checked who was accessing the chats. Couldn't do that all the time, some were just a single posts about the Matrix, you know?" Sure, she did; they were ones rebels made all the time. _Fanning the flames_. "Can't keep track of who's come by billboards and encryption pockets all the time, right?"

"But?"

"But the chat group was public. About as low tech as you get." Cypher nodded at her severe frown. That _might_ be cause for alarm, justifiable, perhaps, enough even for a neophyte such as Lucid to consider warning Morpheus. Spreading the truth to the uninitiated could lead to one of two things: panic or disbelief. It might scare people towards the truth, but it was twice as likely to make the Matrix seem a scam, like one of the infinite number already polluting the current incarnation of the internet in the Matrix.

_But why would she risk it?_ Switch thought for a moment. _Wait..._

"Who do we know who was in that group?"

Cypher smiled. _Bingo_. "A passover."

"I know, I know, but _who_?" Switch's eyebrow twitched impatiently.

"Name's Neo."

"That guy Morpheus looked at before Lucid?" Cypher nodded. "He was _old_. No way he merits even a regular pull. He'd have a..."

"An aneurysm before he even got an exit? Yeah, probably."

"Anything change with him lately?" If anyone had done their homework on Trinity's extracurriculars, it was Cypher. Unless, of course, they were _real world_ extracurriculars, for which she'd go to Mouse a more likely candidate; he'd listen in on Trinity and Lucid's noisy box springs if only to get himself off. It was why she made it very clear, given their closeness, that he dare not think of doing the same to her and Apoc. Kid brother surrogate or no, she'd tear him a new one. Returning to Cypher, who still waffled about telling her, "Out with it."

"I won't lie. He's gotten much better lately."

"Define 'better.'"

"Dunno," Cypher shrugged, "he was so-so before, but after we passed him, post-surveys showed he'd backed off, gone legitimate or at least dropped overtly criminal behaviors."

"And now?

"I'd be lying if I said he wasn't pretty good." He took in her no-bullshit posture for a moment. "It's kinda eerie, Switch."

"How's that?"

"He's gotten better than he'd been in a space of I'd say about a month, if Trinity's logs are correct." As if he'd just admitted something he shouldn't, Cypher's eyebrows jumped in surprise.

"_She's been cataloging his progress?_" No _wonder_ Lucid was prepared to go over her head to Morpheus. They had _dropped_ all recording on this Neo guy. What had they missed that Trinity was willing to go behind Morpheus' back to keep track of?

"Shh!" Cypher hissed, tossing a fearful glance over his shoulder.

"Jesus, Morpheus' gonna have a shit-fit."

"Maybe," Cypher chewed his lip. "But maybe that's the point."

Now, he'd lost her. "What does that mean?"

Cypher rolled his eyes. "Switch, if Trinity'd wanted to, she could have kept this all a secret. Blanked or forged her logs, or at least locked us out of them." He held up his hands as she threw him an incredulous look. "I know, I know, ship full of hackers wouldn't leave any locked box unopened, or at least un-meddled with, but she _could_ have done it."

Recognition dawned. "She's leaving it for us to find?"

"Maybe us," Cypher scratched his goatee, "or maybe for the big guy."

"Why would Morpheus care?"

"He thought the guy might be, you know, _our_ guy." Cypher always did have trouble using the most ridiculously unpretentious title that Zion used for its supposed savior. "Maybe Trinity did, too, and disagreed with him when he passed up the chance."

"She doesn't get to make that call." Plus, as Cypher well knew, as they _all_ did, given Morpheus' dogmatic insistence upon it as fact, _Morpheus_ was going to find the One, _not_ Trinity. The key ingredients of their 'produce-a-savior' diet consisted of following Morpheus' gut, allowing the inner nature of the One to appear without their interference, and moving away from the past systems of failure. Trying to force the case for a potential was off the menu.

"That's why she hasn't told him," Cypher tapped his nose, letting her in on the secret. "She leaves it here, he does a thorough review one day-" he ignored her snort of derision; Morpheus did thorough reviews _every_day, he just usually assumed Trinity's were all in order. "He does a review, sees this stuff looking out of place..."

"Why wouldn't he call her on it?" Cypher threw her a look. "Okay, okay, he never calls her on anything, but _this_?"

"It's got just enough mystery for him to go snooping a little bit more, and maybe he gets his 'gut feeling.' Pretty clever, if you ask me. Subtle. Not like her," Cypher didn't sound pleased about that. Switch tried to decide how she felt about it. For one thing, it meant Cypher was equally if not more devious to have figured it all out in the first place. And he _had_ figured it out. The simplest answer wasn't always the truth; wasn't the Matrix a testimony to that fact?

"Mouse knows, Lucid knows, Apoc'll know soon, and then it's Tank and Dozer, and they'll catch it from Mouse. How the hell can Morpheus _not_ know?"

"No one's telling. Just rumor, baby," Cypher winked. Switch staggered at the genius of this plan. Until he looked at the data specifically, Morpheus _would_ assume it was a rumor, Lucid's jealous rant, or Mouse's fanciful creation. And Cypher wasn't keen to let on just yet that he had figured it out, so, thus far, rumor was the only way anyone-besides her, she realized-would hear about it.

"Why tell me?"

"C'mon, Switch, am I really gonna go blabbing to Lucy? He's halfway there, he's just falling for the wrong ruse. And Mouse? Are you kidding? You know that kid couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it." Switch bit her tongue to suppress instinctual defense of her 'pet' crewmate.

"Why not Apoc?"

"Hasn't asked. You can tell him, if you like."

"I don't think we should call attention to this. Wouldn't that be like doing her work for her?"

"Oh, trust me," Cypher spoke like a co-conspirator, "the levels she worked into this? It's gonna work whether we say nothing or everything."

"Why him?"

"Beats me."

"She didn't say anything when we passed him over before."

"True." He scratched his goatee. "Maybe she kept track of all the passovers, and this guy's the only one who's made a turnaround."

"Huh."

"Whatcha thinking?"

"I don't like this."

"You and me both."

"I mean," Switch struggled to find the words to convey her unease, "I don't like the underhanded way she's gone about it. Something doesn't feel right."

"Yeah," Cypher agreed, his voice echoing none of her concern.

"Something's different here."

"Different," Cypher prompted.

"I don't know. Like maybe this _is_ actually coming to an end."

"What," Cypher grinned, "you mean we've found our guy?"

"Lucid?"

"Well, maybe, but maybe it's this other guy, Neo."

"I don't know," she repeated, hating how empty it sounded, how confused this all felt in so short a time. "I have a bad feeling."

"About what?"

"That Trinity's doing something that's going to get us killed."

Cypher relaxed, genuine amusement in his grin. "Switch, I think we both know there's nothing _Trinity_'s doing that's gonna kill us. Lucid, on the other hand, well, he's your problem today."

"Thanks." Switch laughed and walked out of the Core for hers and Apoc's room to escape and maybe, just maybe, to let him in on the conspiracy.

"No problem," Cypher called after her.

It was only when she got to her door that it struck her that the pity in Cypher's eyes was particularly off for the smile he'd been wearing. She shook the image. Why would he pity her?


	7. September 23rd, 1997

**09-23-97**

Red_Queen paraded through his dreams as a headless Queen of Hearts-which was rather ironic-typing at a keyboard, leaving him clues, escaping all notice. He flattered himself Red_Queen was looking for him, guiding him-him!-along. How many weeks ago had he come across TheRedQueen in that stupid chat room? As with most events in his life, he'd forgotten exactly when. 

As soon as he'd made the leap back into his old life, Neo couldn't believe how he hadn't recognized "TheRedQueen" for who he really was. Red_Queen was a hacker alias that had disappeared years before he'd ever gotten into the game. A legend with an equally legendary flame-out, though no one knew the hows or whys. No one ever did, but hackers across the globe thought the return of Red_Queen, even if it wasn't _the_ Red_Queen, was reason enough to party. Red_Queen's most unexpected return from the dead.

Neo understood what they did not: if it was really Red_Queen, then Red_Queen had jumped ship. No way a hacker would disappear and resurface so neatly years later. He smelled conspiracy and trap all over this resurrection and avoided talking directly to Red_Queen. He pulled the information from others stupid enough to risk it. It was a way to keep in touch as well as an exercise, seeing if he could, successfully and without detection, hack the hackers. The eerie thing was that he _could_. Easily.

Red_Queen seemed to know this. However long ago it was now, at the new start, he had skimmed a few hot spots for TheRedQueen and stumbled across Red_Queen. Like a fool, he'd jumped in immediately, seizing on the possible connection. Red_Queen acknowledged his silent entrance simply:

Red_Queen > Hello, Neo.

He'd literally pulled the plug. In what he later considered the most superstitious, nonsensical move of his adult life, in the instant his brain processed both Red_Queen's greeting and the fact that he had not, at that stage, introduced himself, that _second_, he was at the circuit breaker, throwing it. He'd had an irrational fear that Red_Queen would crawl out of his computer and do...something, something not good. God, the damage, the irresponsibility of it, the amount of time it took to check over every aspect of his machines to be sure nothing irreparable had occurred. 

The greeting meant Red_Queen _was_aware of him, his efforts. This was decidedly _not_ a good thing if Red_Queen had turned government. It took countless, cryptic reassurances from the entity calling itself Red_Queen for him to accept that the most improbable had happened-Red_Queen _had_ returned after years of silence. The why he couldn't begin to fathom, but he knew it, _believed_ it.

Now, he lived it. Visions haunted him even when he was awake. Red_Queen's few messages, all sounding rehearsed yet effective, interrupting his thoughts, becoming his personal mottos. Work was an absolute _nightmare_; the steady clacking noise of other people typing was slowly driving him up the wall; he suspected Red_Queen was among them, taunting him, getting closer just as a tease, sussing him out, seeing if he was worthy.

Red_Queen There's a difference between a trap and a test.

Neo did his best estimation as to what _would_ be worthy. Laws in cyberspace ceased to exist. For a lark, he stole credit card numbers online, bought insignificantly expensive gifts and gave them to the Salvation Army. Nothing that could be traced back to him. Once he tested those tepid waters, he took a deeper breath and dove into the abysmal deep, the mother load-city central servers and so on upwards, all the way to the White House, if he could manage it. To his not so very great surprise, the protection around local records was actually worse than around sites like Amazon. _After all, it's only identity, not _money. That didn't really bother him. He needed tests to be sure he was in the right place.

That's why he was still awake at four am, ready to figure out if he'd made it as far as he'd thought. _Don't piss in your own pond_, he decided, subsequently locating his test site in a random location chosen in the most low-tech manner possible-closing his eyes, flipping to a page in a United States atlas, and pointing a blind finger onto the page. Now, the registrar for jury duty applicants in Westchester County, New York stared back at him from his monitor. His finger hovered above the 'delete' button, trembling. This was another one of those last steps before a fall, one of several he'd taken lately.

Red_Queen > There's a difference between a test and a choice.

_A choice. You have a choice. So make it._

__He deleted the data. In a processing age, the modification, with his equipment, took some few seconds, the longest of his life. Neo forced himself to back out of the connection slowly, doubling back to be sure all records of his intrusion vanished as he severed himself from the other server. His desktop replaced the connections he had opened, stupidly sitting there as if to say, "well, what now, genius?"

_I have no idea. _This was true.

Then, _I think I just did something incredibly stupid_. This was equally true.

"Oh my God," Neo whispered. How long would it take someone to know the information was missing? It was currently five am in New York. Four hours to the start of the business day. Four grueling hours he would have to wait until the most mundane of the mundy civil servants got to his terminal to call out names only to find the roll-call blank. Or would someone check before start of business? In some freak, serendipitous coincidence, he had never been called for jury duty. When did all that start?

_Maybe someone else was watching. _Red_Queen. Red_Queen _had_ to be paying attention. He knew everything about Neo-more than Neo felt comfortable with anyone knowing. Incredibly, he felt he trusted Red_Queen. That was less comfortable still, the uncanny sense that Red_Queen was on his side. For all he knew-actually, hard-evidence _knew_-Red_Queen was an ambush; maybe that line about the trap had been a last-ditch, respectful warning from one fallen pro to another.

Still, Neo wanted Red_Queen to notice. He needed Red_Queen to be witness-without proof, hopefully-to the first strike of Neo, to know that he'd been the one. He'd be a name in his own right, with the _wrong_ people, if he wasn't careful. Was Red_Queen the wrong person?

_I guess I get to find out now_.

He circled the net. Not five minutes had passed since he'd extracted himself from the connection in New York. It was too soon. _Too soon for anyone except Red_Queen_, he corrected himself. Or, maybe, the mythical Morpheus. _Ha-ha, mythical._ He laughed aloud at his pun. _I need more sleep_. But he knew he wouldn't be getting any, not tonight. He sank into a chat-one he'd only ever skimmed before; Red_Queen never went to the same place twice, either for justifiable safety or to maintain the appearance of it.

Cobra_Cmdr Morpheus' in the news again

AtsukoS_hell He for real, you reckon?

Cobra_Cmdr He's *Morpheus.*

AtsukoS_hell He can't be real.

Cis He is!

Cobra_Cmdr The government's got pictures of him, the only ones. top secret.

AtsukoS_hell No way we could get past NSA for that.

Cis Ooh, now you've gone and tempted me.

Cobra_Cmdr Been nice knowing you, Cis.

Cis fuck off Cobra

A second before he would have abandoned this trio, Neo felt it. No announcement, no moderators on these boards-no one confessed here but none worried about what they said either. Just before it happened, he knew it would. He _felt_ it.

Red_Queen Congratulations, Neo.

Cobra_Cmdr the fuck?

AtsukoS_hell oh god

Cis sweet Jesus

Cobra_Cmdr Neo who?

His hands floated above the keys, his mind above the stars. It was too weird. No, weird didn't begin to approximate what it was. Red_Queen was here. Red_Queen _knew_.

AtsukoS_hell Are you really him?

Red_Queen Depends

Cobra_Cmdr Never heard of you.

Cis Shit for brains

AtsukoS_hell Morpheus?

Cobra_Cmdr WHO are you?

Neo's hand flew away from the keyboard as if burned. He tumbled backwards onto the floor. Morpheus wasn't real. They'd said so. No matter how stupid that sounded, he clung to it. _No way. No way, this is crazy!_ He shuddered; how many times had he said that the _last_ time he'd been in the game? It's what had made him drop out, this promise, this _threat_ of the insane being perfectly rational. Dazed, he crawled back to kneel before the monitor, a proper penitent.

Red_Queen I know who I WAS when I got up this morning

Cis what are you doing *here*? No one special here

Cobra_Cmdr Hey!

Red_Queen but, I think I must have changed several times since then.

Red_Queen Wouldn't you agree?

The chat self-destructed. Neo found his blank background screen once more commanding his attention. Red_Queen _knew_.

_Holy shit!_

Red_Queen was _Morpheus_?

Not possible. Morpheus didn't exist. He was the Keyser Soze of the hacker world, the story you told to friends-if you had any friends you trusted so far as that-to seem important, well-versed. But those other three had called Red_Queen _Morpheus_. Again, they'd said so, they'd said Morpheus was real There were _pictures of him for Christ's sake!_ Not that he'd seen them-point of fact, no one had, but they existed, right? Neo sank back onto his heels.

Coincidence. It could be a coincidence. Red_Queen might not be Morpheus at all. He shivered. It didn't matter if Red_Queen _wasn't _Morpheus, could just be a rumor Red_Queen started to increase his own importance by association. The point was that Red_Queen didn't _need_ to start that rumor. Red_Queen was infamous enough in his own right.

Grim resolve, more terrible still than his decision to throw himself back into this work, formed in the pit of his stomach. He felt leaden and burdened yet light and burning. Red_Queen seemed to know where he was and when. Red_Queen determined all points of contact with him, and Neo had thus far accepted that arrangement, seeing as Red_Queen's timing was impeccable. No more. Morpheus was famous. Morpheus had a record. _Morpheus_ he could track. Find those pictures-_if they actually do exist..._

With any luck-which seemed to teem about him these days-he could connect the two, determine some pattern that revealed the mystery of Red_Queen through the high profile of Morpheus. There were no questions without answers, no riddles without punch lines.

"Why is a raven like a writing desk?"

His own voice surprised him. It sounded raw. Why had he said that? Neo had no idea. He sprawled out on the floor and was soon dead asleep in a dreamless, endless nothing, shock granting him a few blissful hours of sleep he'd not expected to get. His resolution, he recognized as he passed out, would have to wait until after work. 

He'd probably be late again.


	8. October 25th, 1997 01:16:52 am CST

**10-25-97**  
**01:16:52 am CST**

"That's the address."

Choi stared at vacant lots on all four corners of Oak Lane and Mill Street. The only thing still standing for a full block was a phone booth. It resembled nothing so much as a stubborn daisy that had grown back after a forest fire had claimed the rest of the surrounding area.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"He said go to this address and make a call."

"What's the number, Pony?" Pony screwed up his face a moment too long. "You _do_ remember, right?" _You had better not be wasting my time_. Two hours kept a lot of customers waiting.

"I remember."

"Then let's make a call." Choi strode to the payphone with a false certainty, feeling nothing less than absolutely foolish. He kept reminding himself he could take it out of Pony's ass if this didn't pan out. That wouldn't make up the couple of grand he'd be out for the night, but he'd sure _feel_ a whole lot better. Throwing the door open, he beckoned Pony forward, said "Number." Pony dropped in a quarter, punched it in, and obediently handed the phone to Choi. He almost hung up when he realized that it had been too many numbers for a local call. He sure as hell hadn't any intention of putting in any more than a quarter. He'd start taking money off of Pony _now._

The call connected.

"Yeah?"

"Who is this?" Choi demanded. Pony's smugly satisfied grin was pissing him off.

"You called me. Shouldn't you know?"

There was something..._off _about the voice on the end of the line. It didn't sound natural. A distortion or a voice box?

"I got your number from a..." He did a once over of Pony. "From a friend." If this worked, he might consider letting Pony bear that distinction.

"I don't have any friends."

"_My _friend. Pony."

"I don't know any Pony."

"Well, see, he got it from..." Choi palmed the mouthpiece and jerked his chin at Pony. DuJour stepped forward with him, right at Pony's elbow. "Pony, who the hell gave you this number?"

"Guy called Strike, I think."

"You think? You _think_? Never mind," Choi groaned, running a hand over his face. "Fuck!" He put the phone to his mouth and uncovered it. 

"Who's there with you?"

_Christ, this guy's paranoid. _"That's just Pony. Pony says he got your number from Strike."

"Strike shouldn't be giving out this number." The voice on the other end of the phone, despite sounding artificial, had enough dryness to it for Choi to want to smack its owner.

"Pony seemed to think you could help me out with a little problem I'm having."

"I'm no councillor. You have problems, call a help-line."

"I _thought_ that's what this was." Choi gritted his teeth and caught DuJour's gaze. Her eyes were wild. _One word, and she'd cut him._ DuJour never went anywhere unarmed. It excited her too much not to. "I'm having car troubles."

"Try triple-A."

"I would rather it be done on the sly."

"Would you?"

It took Choi all of three seconds to tire of this dance. If this was a setup, he'd go down for it if he said what he wanted first. But the voice on the other end wasn't going to make the offer. If it was a cop, he couldn't or the charge could be thrown out on the basis of entrapment. If he was a legit criminal, he wouldn't for a similar fear of a setup. It was a risk, but if neither one took it, they'd be at this all night. Things needed to get _done_.

"I need a boot removed from my car."

"Parking tickets?"

"Too many to remember," Choi answered honestly.

"Very costly."

"I heard you could help me out with that."

"Really."

"Change a few records, maybe put my car back on the 'clear and above board' list?"

"I see. How would I do that?"

"Using a computer."

There was a lengthy pause punctuated by static crackling which Choi interpreted as the distortion device trying to translate the person on the other end breathing. Sita and The Dude watched without perceptible interest. DuJour looked barely restrained and had bitten into her lip; blood pooled around one of her unnaturally sharp canines. Always ready for some action, his girl.

"What's your name?"

"Choi." Everyone else jumped when he said it, as if this were a giant secret he'd just revealed.

"Your _real_ name."

"I'm not telling you that." No way. He'd sooner bite through the boot on his car. And some part of him refused to trust this anonymous, miracle helper.

"I can't help you if I don't know what name the car's registered under."

"How about I give you the plates?"

"That will do." A pause. "It's registered locally?"

"Yeah, B-1-6-6-E-R."

"Hold on."

Pony was sniggering, even with DuJour's nails now tapping at his Adam's apple. Sita whispered in The Dude's ear, tracing out the alphanumeric on his chest upside down, then giggled. The Dude laughed only after she did, still nonplused for having been given the punch line.

"What?" Choi challenged Pony.

"You got a complex, Choi?"

"What?"

"B166ER...you know what that looks like, right?"

"Like the fucking plates on my wheels, man," he snapped. "It came with the car. She's second-hand." He turned his back on Pony and the others. "Hello?"

"Hello, Charles Evan Baldwin-Spencer." There was a crackle like simulated laughter.

"That's not my name."

"Of course not. That's just the name under which a 1976 black Pontiac Firebird, license B166ER is registered."

"We understand each other then," Choi nodded to himself with relief. He would have _died_ before saying that name aloud. Particularly because that _was_ his name. _Fuck that, I am a self-made man, so my name is the one _I _choose._

A simulated whistle. "You owe the great state of Illinois two grand, Choi."

"On _parking tickets?_"

"You'd be amazed how that can add up when you ignore summonses."

"I don't believe it. Why the hell wouldn't they have just impounded my car?" This was a trick, a means of jacking up the price for this cowboy's services.

"It's on their to-do list." The voice sounded thoroughly unconcerned. 

"Bullshit."

"To-do tomorrow at 9 am, if you want to know."

"Bullshit," Choi repeated.

"I guess you'll find out, won't you?" This was a tad more defensive.

Choi swallowed his pride. Two grand he had, naturally, but it was another matter about proving he'd come by it legally. "How _much_?"

"Half."

"You're shitting me."

"To cover my expenses."

"_What fucking expenses?" _He punched the glass, slicing his knuckles on the shards. "You just have to change a few numbers on a...a fucking _machine_!"

"I'll need to locate a new number for these transactions. That takes time and effort."

"You a _lawyer_ or something?"

"No, just very _cautious_."

Okay, that he understood. "Five hundred. Five hundred and you make those tickets vanish."

"Seven-fifty for that. For the full grand, I'll see that the boot's off by 9 am tomorrow."

"No," Choi shook his head, as if the voice could see. "No, I need it tonight."

"Tell that to the city workers who don't start till 9 am. One thousand, and your car jumps to the head of their list, and your tickets are cleared."

"Five hundred for the whole package, and I'll make you a deal." He _dealt_ all the time; it was what he was good at. 

"I'm not interested in deals."

"Sure you are, cowboy," Choi soothed. "How else you going to make it in this world? Like you said, takes time and effort. Why waste either? You play right by me, I'll take care of you, too." Oh, he was good. No one turned down a joint, a pipe, a hit, a pill, or a tab when he worked. And all it ever took was _one_. Just one 'yes,' and his customers threw 'no' out of their dictionaries.

"What does that mean?" _Ahh, gotcha._ Choi grinned and gave DuJour a thumbs-up, even nodded once at Pony. The latter relaxed, DuJour bit into her lip harder.

He cleared his throat. "Means you've got a customer for life. And a new go-to boy. I'll get you new customers. They'll work through me for what they need." Silence as the owner of the false voice thought this through. "What do you say?"

"I don't trust you. I don't _know_ you. Why?"

"Business deal, one lowlife to another."

"What sort of _business_ would that be?"

"The _feeling good_ business."

"Not interested."

"You don't have to be," Choi's smoothest shmooze came out, the voice with which he could talk potentials into consumption, virgins into prostitution, if he wished. "I have people who might be in need of your type of services. Stupid people, stupid people who don't know any better than to pay top dollar." That was true-junkies would pay anything for what they needed because you never bargained with the dealer who held all the cards.

"Stupid people not like you, you mean."

"Do I sound stupid to you?"

"No, actually. Very surprising."

"What do you say? Seven-fifty now, and I pass you work on the sly."

The voice wasn't going to agree, not right away, but his deal was too good to turn down. It inevitably was. Choi counted the seconds up to a hundred and twenty before he lost track between numbers while staring at DuJour. She was licking her bloody lower lip into a bright red mess about her mouth. He'd send Pony packing with Sita and The Dude and take advantage of that. It took him a long while to realize the voice on the other end had begun to speak again.

"_Hello_?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Five hundred."

It wasn't "It's a deal," or "You got it," but it would do for Choi. But he still wouldn't have his car tonight. That was the last little hitch in the whole package. Short work for a pro like him.

"I'll make it seven-fifty, deal and all if you can get it unlocked tonight."

"Seven-fifty then."

That simple. This guy knew how to bargain, too, revealing only as much as necessary to get the sweetest deal for himself. It burned Choi to know he'd been played even a little, but, honestly, he'd half expected it. It didn't matter. This was a potentially lucrative new partnership, pairing a new supplier with the established network-that was the how to do business. The glitches between their cuts of the pie could be sorted out later; he'd just have to school this guy-behind the voice, he pictured a stereotypical computer nerd, tape on glasses, calculator in pocket-on the reality of street prices. That is, once _he_ determined what they were.

"It's yours. Where do we meet?"

"We don't."

"Uh-uh," Choi tsk-tsked into the receiver. "I do all my business face to face."

"I can arrange a drop for the money. The rest I can do from here."

"I got that, man, what I need to know is how I can be sure my car will be taken care of once I drop."

"What, you don't trust me?" Sarcasm was difficult to divine in an artificial voice, but Choi didn't have any problem. He let his soothing tone roll over his frustration.

"You got nothing to lose. You meet me somewhere, we exchange. I'm not carrying anything more dangerous than a woman right now." Granted, he thought she was pretty dangerous, but still.

"Not over the phone. Look under the shelf." Choi stared at the wall of the phone booth. "Where the yellow pages should be." He stooped. "On the underside of the ledge." He looked up. There was another address and a phone number, a _different_ one from the one he'd just called. "Memorize that. Don't repeat it on this line or aloud to any of your friends. Do _not_ bring them with you. Call the number when you get there."

"Man, you've got to be kidding. That's halfway across the city!"

"It's your car."

Choi stared at the receiver as it bleated out an empty dial tone.


	9. December 11th, 1997

**12-11-97**

A sentinel scare and events immediately prior to it had inspired Morpheus to leave the ship running silent. For the first time in years, every last member of his crew was resting _alone_ in his or her respective bed. Because they trusted his judgment and respected his right to have a moment of silence. Apoc had gone back to his old cabin, sleeping without Switch for the first night in a long while, though not as long as Morpheus would have preferred. Trinity was sleeping alone for the precise reasons that left him awake in a dormant ship. Everyone else was alone as a matter of course.

He'd lost another man in the Matrix today. _Today, I have lost a life._ It was never impersonal for him, no matter how it seemed to the other members of his crew. To them, he displayed unflagging will, perseverance, and belief. On his own, he mourned each life that passed on as a result of his inadequacy. It wasn't arrogance to say he was one of the greatest-certainly one of the most famous-rebels ever to plague the Matrix. However, he was insignificant; the man he would find would make his miraculous escapes and infamous escapades obsolete.

All he had found was death. He had begun his pursuit in earnest with the acquisition of a new ship, filling out her crew with _his_ recruits, save for Trinity, who had followed him from the _Mjolnir._ Tank and Dozer were fresh from Zion-just the right sort: malleable. It had taken ten years to pull the rest of current roster, starting with Cypher, followed shortly by Switch, Apoc, Binary and Ajax-who'd left as soon as both of them realized that there was no chance of displacing Trinity as second-in-command; they fought for that honor and responsibility on the _Vigilant_ now. Mouse had been the most recent permanent addition. Binary and Ajax were the only ones of his select few he'd lost to other ships. Save for Niobe. _But,_ a traitorous, self-pitying voice whined in his mind,_ did you ever really _have_ her to lose? _He dislodged it. He'd lost plenty as was.

Which was his problem, his purpose for mourning now. Five. There were more than that, but today he mourned five, four old, one fresh. _Five good soldiers and not one deserved what he or she got_. He'd waited-he'd _waited_ until he was ready, making sure his numbers could support, protect, and encourage the One, through simple human camaraderie if nothing else. _If you build it, he will come_, went the refrain in his head. What of it? One by one, they came and failed. He'd tried to change it up this time, and fate had snatched away one more member of his crew.

Niobe had seen two of them go before she'd left, her words present in the stillness, taking the place of his conscience. _You believe something, and that's fine. You just don't know when to _stop_ believing_. _Things don't happen in the real world because you_ want_ them to happen. You can't change people, Morpheus, you can't make them what they're not. Why the hell do you think there are over six billion people still plugged into the Matrix?_

She was right, one of her most endearing and aggravating traits, especially to one so used to being right himself. For Niobe, it was simple: life or death, pushing versus pushing too hard, faith versus zealotry. It had never been so easy for him. Years ago, he escaped the Matrix seeking the truth, wanting to incorporate the two halves of his soul that had, in the Matrix's false reality, always threatened to tear his mind apart. The real world was a salve that preserved his sanity, that told him that his senses weren't lying to him and yet _were_, and that both conditions could exist concurrently.

How could he not believe the Oracle when she gave him the singular honor of finding the hero who would do for the world what could thus far be done only one mind at a time? And only then with the combined efforts of many people? Her words were those he lived by, they were his purpose. His purpose was to find the One, the One's to free humanity and end the Matrix. His insight, his disciple-the term wounded him now, but that was how he'd thought of it in the beginning-would lead to the ultimate freedom of humanity from a century of enslavement.

_This is the price the dreamers pay_. Morpheus sat up in his loading chair. It was time. He hoisted himself up to his feet and strode over to a recessed area where a solitary body lay covered with a gray wool blanket. You began and ended your life in the real world in those blankets if you were a soldier. Reborn naked, a crew brought you inside, wrapped you to prevent hypothermia; dead, that blanket was your shroud. This was no mere metaphor, it was a reality; the blanket used to clothe your real body in its first moments of paralyzed weakness remained with you until you needed it no longer. And you never knew who'd had it before strong hands wrapped it around your exposed flesh. You only knew they were dead.

Like Lucid.

_How did I fail?_ This was as important to Morpheus as the recognition of his failure. Success was predicated on learning from past mistakes. Each time he thought he'd found someone who could be the One, each time he had _failed_, he altered his pattern. The first time out, he took the best-dynamite code breaker, young, eager, aware-and trained him to be better still. When first he spoke the words of prophecy, heard himself promise destiny to another, there had been only anticipation. The One would be he who pushed himself to a level from which he could not return. Unmatched.

Achilles had not been the One.

His first lost candidate he bore in stride, holding to hope, inwardly swearing revenge on the Agents who'd countered Achilles' courage with death. Morpheus altered his methods, still seeking the best, just shifting the grounds of assessment. There had been a report of an aberration whereby a talented athlete had altered his consciousness, nearly escaping into the real world, sheerly because of his will to succeed. He explored this possibility; if a person could wake himself up, it meant there was something unique to this person, unseen by the Resistance before and possibly ever after. An ability that could not be explained away.

Marathon had not been the One either.

If it was not intelligence, nor a prowess that granted special abilities, perhaps it took a greater mind, one more concerned with possibilities rather than realities. Imagination. A fundamental trait easily identifiable in all recruits, closely associated with age-you had to catch the recruit at a point in his or her life where dreams were still real, possibilities were infinite, and limitations nonexistent. You needed a dreamer to lead a people. Imaginative people were not bound to the forms presented to them, and thus, the One reincarnated would possess a mind capable of transitioning between vastly different forms. Or genders, for that matter.

But Kassandra had not been the One.

Frustrated by his failure to save her life, Morpheus turned inward on his admittedly zealous faith to find that it was all that could sustain him when all else threatened to overwhelm him. _Faith_. The answer seemed too simple to _not_ have been overlooked. It took great faith to believe in God or many gods in a real or simulated world full of so much horror, pain, and-closest to home-death. Like Marathon willing himself to freedom, Morpheus expected belief would carry this recruit as it carried him.

Pius had not been the One.

The defeat of faith caused his own spiritual crisis. It was the only time he could recall Trinity fearing for him, though she would not dare voice it. She feared next to nothing. Were it not for her assurances-and out and out stubborn refusal to consider such a thing-he might have suspected her to have been the One, hiding under his nose all along. She denied it, however, and he believed her.

"Lucid," Morpheus rumbled. He always performed this personal goodbye aloud, out of respect, a testimony to how much they kept locked away, unsaid. "Lucid, I was wrong. I gave you false hope and never told you _why._" The dead never answered back, not in recrimination, nor acceptance. "Your life is debt I owe and can never repay. I accept responsibility.

"All life is precious. I have tried to be sure that no life entrusted to my care is wasted. If ever you felt that way, I apologize for your loss." The words might have sounded odd to anyone else, but they spoke the truth in his soul. "It is hollow to stand here in vigil over the fifth life to be lost to my crusade and promise that I shall never allow this to happen again. I am sorry, Lucid, I am no longer so hopeful as that. I can only pray that you understand my reasoning and forgive me in such time as we might meet again.

"I freed you for mediocrity's sake, Lucid." Again, the words sounded harsh, as if they might dishonor the dead; Morpheus trusted Lucid knew him better than that. "I wanted to prove that the One was not just an accident or a miracle, but a sum of parts. You were an intellect, a worshiper of the body, a creator, and a believer. You were all the things in small quantities that I thought fortune-sent in your predecessors.

"Trinity called me a Creationist in my faith," he faltered as regret for her loss struck him low in the gut. He recovered, "but in you I believed there was such a thing as an evolved person, a man of many talents who had enough diversity to adapt them to a larger role. The real world was meant to be your evolutionary impetus, me the observer and assistant only."

Morpheus bent to place one hand where Lucid's immobile chest lay beneath the blanket; the other he wrapped around a pendant of Zion's stone he kept with him always. "I cannot promise you I will never kill again with these beliefs, Lucid. I can only promise to try. For every life lost, I have learned a hard lesson. It is not fair that you should have to perish so that I may be educated, but I pray you find comfort in knowing your death," he sucked in a hard breath to steel his last words against the bitter cold of the ship, "_will not be the last._"

There was nothing else a commander could say to his soldier. Nothing else would come to his lips, save for words like "you have not died in vain," which sounded false in his mind's ear. How could they not be false? They would have been spoken by a man duped by his belief in himself. That's what it amounted-_his_ arrogance, _his_ conceit had gotten good people killed. _This is the price that dreamers pay?_ He raged against the Oracle, blamed her for setting his path among a thicket of thorns.

_Enough_. Precious time was wasting. He could set aside his grief for now, save it for a time of prayers. The _Neb_ flickered back to life under his trained and experienced touch. It would take about an hour for the entire crew to filter out, those who were so inclined. Until that time, he would patrol the Matrix, take his shift at the newly revived monitors, and attempt once more to find the name that stuck in his brain but never made it to his tongue, the face that defied him to deny its divinity but never showed itself.

Forces of habit had not been lost upon promotion. He checked the last operator's logs, swallowing a threatening lump when he saw they were Trinity's. She had been on operator duty for Lucid's solo run; Morpheus smiled wistfully remembering her obstinance as she refused to give over the chair following her monitoring shift when Lucid's run began. The logs were open, ranked in order from the most recent to oldest notes recorded on her activities. All seemed routine-ghosts of ghost runs collecting information on potential recruits, possibilities for future ghost run sites, registering known Agent activity, dead hardlines in need of patching, or compromised exits.

Her routine left only one log unaccounted for, a log marked 'passover,' and nothing more. It was not locked, so he assumed it was not private. He called it up and scanned over the data. The first, oldest part of the information was a record he remembered having drawn up almost a year ago. It seemed ages ago, a time when he'd been at a loss so total it was rivaled only by his current spiritual quagmire. It was the man who might have been Lucid, but for his failure to apply his talents in any direction Morpheus could reconcile with his conception of the One.

After this initial report, which was marked 'pass,' to indicate a dead file, someone, presumably Trinity, had added enough information to dwarf their preliminaries. A graph of the subject's-Neo's-activities followed a sinusoidal curve up to the end of the original report; Neo's wavering between interest and apathy with regards to their cause had cost him a ticket out of the Matrix. Trinity's continuing notes showed a plummet in his abilities made only more remarkable for its swift, eccentric, impossibly instantaneous recovery a few months after the depression. Curiously, Neo's interaction with the truth in cyberspace plummeted _after_-Morpheus double-checked the date on the original file-and _only_ after they had dropped him, resigning him to his life as a battery.

They _had_ dropped him. Trinity did not seem to have gotten that message. The meticulous details of his activities, monitoring his behaviors, from sleeping patterns to personal interactions-of which, there were all too few-stunned him. To have this much knowledge, she would have had to have been watching Neo _every_ shift she worked and then some. Suspicion flared in his mind. For Trinity to have learned so much, she would have watched Neo very carefully. For _Neo_ to have risen so far, so fast, he would have to have had help-some motivation at the very least. His thoughts ran the gamut of decrying her for treason and lauding her for being able to hide this for so long.

The heaters kicked on with a hiss, and a warm stream of air blew around his feet. Yet he felt chilled. _Not chilled_, he blinked as the disorder and wonder in his brain clicked home, _chills_. He continued reading the log, a growing sense of amazement wrapping around his heart. In the time since the _Neb_ had left him behind, Neo had advanced to a position of standing with regards to his talents at breaking, entering, and leaving data stores undetected that were enviable in any recruit. He showed a marked disregard for the laws of the society in which he currently resided.

None of that mattered, really.

In his faith, there were no coincidences. Luck, yes, lucky people, sure, but luck that ran the risk of being predictable? Hardly. Coincidence denied fate, something he knew, despite his curses at the Oracle, he still held true. Ten years of his life, spent searching, hoping, recovering, had come to this: in the hour he was prepared to admit defeat, to accept that he could do only his best, nothing more, Neo's file fell in his lap. It was as if it had waited until this very last moment, waited for the last shred of his patience and perseverance to fail him. Just at _that_ moment-that moment that was _this_ moment-Neo's data sought him out to tempt the disenfranchised cleric back into the fold. Brought him back from the precipice. 

According to Trinity's log, Neo was frantically searching for any traces of him in the Matrix. Ten years of captaining, twice that many since having his fate declared, only to just realize what the twinkle and riddle in the Oracle's words spelt out for his future. _She told me I would find the One._ Those were _his_ words, the ones that had filled him with pride, pride ripped and rendered asunder by five deaths at his hands. _Her_ words were far less specific; they invariably were:

_"Busy times ahead for you, Morpheus." She lights her cigarette._

_Ma'am?_

_"You better be paying attention when the time comes. Don't want to miss the bridegroom and all that."_

_You're referring to a parable?_

_"Clever boy. Always ready to show it off, too, aintcha?" Her grin is too well-informed for him to argue, but he demurs._

_Hardly, ma'am._

_"I wish I could have told you not to let this go to your head years ago, but you weren't available then."_

_Let _what_ go to my head?_

_"Pride. It will go before the fall and all that, but you'll recover. You always do."_

_Thank you. I think._

_"Don't go thanking me yet. I'm promising hard times for you."_

_I took that chance when I took the red pill, ma'am._

_"Always so polite, too." She stubs out the butt in an ashtray. "Are you sure you're up for this, Morpheus?"_

_I believe in fate. I can't escape whatever you tell me._

_"Won't stop you from trying," she laughs, a sound of rocks on sandpaper as she coughs, barely getting out the rest. "Lord love you, but you are a stubborn thing."_

_I don't think so._

_"See?" He has no answer and imagines that she knows this. She does, and says, "You've heard what I've told the others."_

_The prophecy? The One will return and his coming will..._

_"...hail the destruction of the Matrix, yes, yes, I know _that_. I don't need you to tell me what I said yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Been giving that message to Zion for nigh on eighty years now, at least. The One was barely in his grave before I promised he'd come back. If I had said word one just a day or so earlier, the One would have been mightily upset to hear it as he would have been _alive_ at the time."_

_Ma'am._

_"I want to know what you think about that, Morpheus."_

_I believe it._

_"Because I said so?"_

_Because _I_ believe it._

_"You'd better watch out for that." He wants to ask what this means, but she is not looking, not responding to his significant yet hesitant, sharp inhalations. "Cheer up!" She stands, reaching to place a freshly-baked brownie on a napkin for him. "I've got good news for you."_

_I thought you said there were hard times ahead._

_"And you assume the two are mutually exclusive? For masochists they're not."_

_I'm no masochist._

_"No, you're worse," she hurumphs, "you're a _martyr_, Morpheus."_

_No._

_"Stubborn, too."_

_He does not deny this because these is no way to speak without proving her right._

_"Right, good news. _The_ good news, the _best_ news Zion's gotten out of me-besides all the 'One returning' stuff I trot out every year-since I first made that prophecy." A pause, another smile. She is always smiling, even when she's frowning to be sympathetic on someone's behalf. It comes from seeing the future and knowing all man's folly at once. "You will free the One, Captain."_

_I'm no captain._

_He winces-that's all he can say? She smiles wider._

_"Things change." They do because it begins to sink in, begins to register with him._

_Me? _I'm _going to find the One?_

_"I told you to be careful of that. It's going to bring you no end of trouble or heartbreak."_

_Watch what?_

_"Time's up, Morpheus. Take your brownie. Share with the new girl."_

_New girl? Niobe?_

_"She's mad because I haven't asked to see her. You can tell her we'll catch up much later. You'll let her know I apologize for however disassembled I may appear at that time, won't you?" It is not really a question as she already knows the answer._

_Sure._

_"A pleasure, Morpheus."_

_Ma'am._

_He makes ready to leave. "Morpheus?"_

_Yes, ma'am?_

_" 'Watch what?' " He waits. "You give a good think over some time later on, and you'll figure it out. I should see you back here about then, Captain."_

He began to chuckle in the refrigerating chill of the Core. When the first of his crew to risk a run upstairs showed-it was Tank, always ready to take a shift when the pluggies were skittish-he found Morpheus smiling.

"Sir, you all right?"

Morpheus rose, patting Tank on the shoulder, nodding at the files onscreen. "Him. Full report. Concentrate on fleshing out this file. Pass it on to whoever relieves you."

"Sir." It fell somewhere between a reply and a question.

"There is no 'I' in 'The One,' Tank."

If Tank had hoped for answer, that was not it.


	10. January 3rd, 1998

**1-3-98**

He was going to be fired if he kept this up. Neo walked out of his building with his suitcase in his teeth. The suitcase was empty, just for show-he never had to take work home with him, regardless of how little time he actually put into showing up at work-but it was still heavy. Grunting, he yanked on his suit jacket and backed his way out the door. Mrs. Conroy waved to him from where she stood, just coming out of her own door.

_Sucker. You are _such_ a sucker_. He straightened his coat, took the briefcase from his mouth and walked back to her.

"Good morning, Thomas."

"Morning," he grunted, reaching for the bag at her feet without a word.

"Oh my, how sweet of you! I was just going to take it out," she smiled at him. He wondered if she really thought he hadn't caught onto this little charade by now. It was the fifth time since he'd made the mistake of helping her once. At least it wasn't ever heavy, but on mornings when he was running late--which were becoming more and more frequent--it was another five minutes for which he might be called to task. He'd hoped that being constantly late might mess up her schedule, but Mrs. Conroy did a pretty good job of watching out for him.

"No problem," he grated, dragging the bag out with him.

"Oh, Thomas, before I forget," she left the doorway to her apartment to hold the door for him.

"Something wrong?"

"You've been having some late visitors. Is everything all right, Thomas?"

_Thomas_ grimaced, swallowing hard. Leave it to a snoop like his landlady to take all too keen a glance at his business partners. Old ladies were supposed to be in bed during the indecent hours of the morning in which _Neo_ operated.

"Yes?"

"I was just wondering whether there was anything going on. Young lady perhaps?"

"Oh," Neo laughed, relieved, "no, nothing like that." _Pathetic._

"I just keep hearing someone knocking pretty loudly for you..."

"Just a friend who works nights, Mrs. C," Neo explained. It was convenient for him to live on the first floor--he could achieve the basement-like darkness he preferred without too much modification, plus his customers didn't have too far to get lost, or, god forbid, too many intervening neighbors to ask for directions. On the other hand, every time Choi pounded on the door or one of his cronies was too loud in the hall, Mrs. Conroy could hear, and she _would_ be listening.

"Would you mind telling him to keep it down, Thomas?"

"Sure," he nodded, escaping her by throwing himself out the door towards the dumpster. Winter had hit full force in Chicago, but he could barely feel it. Cold never bothered him; half the night he was awake with frozen fingers, typing away, keeping busy. It was better than the heat because heat and humidity could ruin his equipment. That was the way he thought about the weather--in terms of what would harm his setup, not about what he would find uncomfortable.

Still, the looks people gave him sometimes made him wish he could be bothered to take the time to play the part of someone who gave a damn. Neo wore anonymity like kevlar; he just wished he knew how to cultivate it in the public sector, especially at work. No doubt his boss knew who he was. The section head had been threatening to report him for his tardiness. Thus far, he'd managed to get away with it for the past quarter, but it was catching up with him. All his sick days were gone, devoted to blissful, nearly comatose stretches of making up lost sleep. The vacation days would go next. Still, even if he were penalized for every hour missed, it wouldn't be enough. It never mattered if you made up the time; Metacortex had this thing about schedules.

He debated the pros and cons of catching a cab versus walking. He didn't live too far away for walking to be problematic if he got out of the building in time. The El didn't pass near enough to his starting or ending destinations to make it a better option, and buses were not an option he could stomach. _Fuck it, you're already late. Don't lose more money on a cab_. Sighing, he took off at a brisk walk in the direction of the Metacortex building.

It was funny to think of things in terms of money. He really didn't care about money. If he wanted to, he could quit his job that morning and have enough to last him, on his modest budget, for the next year. More of a concern was not being nailed by the IRS for funds he shouldn't _legally_ have possessed. That meant walking instead of cabs, his comfortable but dumpy place instead of anywhere with more amenities. Ultimately, it meant non-existing in a dead-end job as much as he could afford to without losing it, which was a challenge.

Neo breezed into the lobby, flashing his security badge. As he stepped into the elevator, he thumbed the picture. No one ever liked their pictures on these things, but he thought his was especially heinous. One of the few girls in his department had said he looked like Dopey from _Snow White_ in it. Normally, that sort of comment didn't bother him; however, since he was rather used to attracting absolutely zero attention from the opposite sex, the particular notice she'd taken unnerved him. Most of the office folk didn't bother--he had a reputation of being too awkward for any physical appeal to rescue him. He knew he was vain, to an extent, to think himself fairly attractive, but it didn't change his outrage every time he looked at his stupid badge.

The elevator door dinged open to reveal a brand new banner that had been placed in reception. METACORTECHS. _Haw-haw_. Somebody's idea of a joke, and a lame one at that. Had to be, he knew all about being lame. 'Geeks of the world unite' summed up in a stupid pun on the company's name.

"Mr. Anderson," Jill, the receptionist beckoned him over with a finger whilst carrying on another conversation on her headphone set. She tapped a red lacquered fingernail on a pink slip titled WHILE YOU WERE OUT. He stared at it blankly. No one called him at work. He tried to remember if there was even a phone in his cubicle. He didn't think there was. The memo contained two words: _big trouble_. When he managed to stop rereading it stupidly, he looked up at Jill. She glanced significantly to her left; he followed her gaze. The section head, Derek Marrin, was talking to Mr. Rhineheardt, a vice-president who'd decided to fill his vacant schedule pretending he worked for human resources. He suppressed a groan as they both turned to look at him. Marrin nodded for him to come over.

"Mr. Rhineheardt, this is Thomas Anderson. Tommy, you know Mr. Rhineheardt?" _So smooth_. Neo wanted to give his cocky face a few dents with his fist. He _hated_ that nickname--only his mother called him that. Well, until, despite his indignant protests, Choi had taken to reading his mail; somehow, telling him that he was technically committing a felony by so doing never really bother the drug-dealer. Choi was calling him "Tommy-boy" every chance he got because it clearly pissed him off. The last thing he needed was for Marrin-_smarmy son of a bitch_-to take it up like they were pals. Like he didn't only ever interact with the guy under less than pleasant circumstances.

"I hear we're having some problems, Mr. Anderson."

"Mother's going through a divorce, sir," the lie came easily to his lips. He hadn't talked to his mother in a dog's age and ignored her letters on his birthday. They'd had a falling out, and he didn't care enough to reforge the bonds of familial loyalty after she'd screamed herself blue over his decision to ignore her plans for his future. Her plans meant a house with a fence and a wife named Betty, the daughter of some bridge-playing friend of hers. His father only escaped Neo's attempts to pretend he'd been the result of a spontaneous generation of life by the simple fact that he was dead. Problem solved.

"I'm sorry to hear that. I hope that once matters have settled down, you'll consider joining us on _company_ time? Hm?" Rhineheardt wasn't like Marrin; Marrin was a schmuck, Rhineheardt was a piece of work. Marrin would look exasperated and then go tattle. Rhineheardt played at subtle threats to his job security and smiled the whole while. He would kick Neo's ass out the door the second his productivity fell behind his attendance record, waving goodbye, wishing him well, and then blacklisting him in the industry.

"Yes, sir," he mumbled, backing up, head bowed to avoid displaying the full range of his fury, bound for his cubicle. He didn't look up when the janitor, emptying the trash bin along his row, half collided with him. It felt almost intentional, as if even the janitor knew he was in dire straits with regards to his job and that he couldn't afford an outburst even if he'd wanted to.

"Sorry," the other man muttered, sounding less sorry and more like he wished he had body-checked Neo instead. Neo ignored him, sinking into his chair, all but throwing his empty suitcase under the desk. As per his usual ritual, he stared at his black screen, hands placed flat on either side of the keyboard, just waiting. He was never quite sure what for, what distraction he thought might come that would mean he didn't have to turn it on for a while longer, that meant he had a little longer of a reprieve from shuffling codes back and forth. Coding wasn't bad, it was just too easy.

There was no point in putting it off any longer; he flicked on the surge protector strip and listened to the crisp static snapping as the machine came to life. He gave the Windows95 delay screen an ugly look but couldn't motivate himself to do anything else. His 'IN' tray was full of notices, modifications to be made to banking code software for one client, billing programs for another, the usual. Networking to machines, telling them to behave the way clients wanted. Neo had to laugh sometimes at that arrogance-exactly who was telling _whom_ what to do? Maybe he could wire Marrin's paycheck to some charity a few days in advance of the next payday-giving time for the check to be cashed, irretrievably, before Marrin had the chance to wonder what happened to a sizable portion of his salary.

Practicing threats, running them over in his mind, always improved his mood, but he was always careful to limit them to flights of fancy. _Don't piss in your own pond, Tommy-boy_. His inner monologue was sounded like Choi these days. Funny that sage advice should find form in the voice of a drug-dealer. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, sleep usually interrupted by the lanky criminal pounding on his door with one or another of his floozies around.

"Ah, Tom, you got a second?"

He looked up to find Marrin leaning over the wall of his cubicle.

"Just getting started," he turned from his desktop, leaning back casually.

"New company policy," he shook his head. He seemed to be taking a page from Rhineheardt's "power management theory" book, playing friendly, the smile falser than his hairpiece. "About accessing private sites on company time."

"I heard."

"Well, seeing as you've been having problems making the most of your time here, I'm sure you wouldn't want to waste any more time, right?" Marrin laughed as if this were an extremely clever joke; Neo had never been one to laugh along because it was expected, so he just stared and waited. It usually produced the highly enjoyable effect of making the laughing party feel awkward, too, which it did now. Marrin coughed once, recovering, "Ha, what _do_ I have to worry about, right? You're probably the only one not playing minesweeper when I turn my back, right?"

"I don't have any games installed on this machine." That was true. He'd un-installed them to kill time last week. He's also uninstalled Outlook-_damn buggy piece of crap_-most of the media players, and various other dead weight programs in the OS. When Metacortex upgraded to Windows98, if Microsoft ever got around to fixing the bugs in _that_, he could play around with punching holes in it, too. 

"What I mean is, you're probably the last person I need to be worrying about wasting time on personal stuff at work, right?"

If subtlety were a race, Derek Marrin had come in last with a sprained ankle or had called in sick the day before. What Marrin imagined he was conveying was, "You don't want to get in any more trouble, right?" What he meant was, "You don't have any friends, _right_?" And the answer was, _right_, on both counts. But if he said "right?" one more time, Neo was going to slug him.

"Just thought I'd let you know. I guess I'll be seeing you here late again tonight, right?"

"_Right_," Neo nodded, too ready to be rid of this asshole, grinding his teeth and trying to think of what mundane things he would have to make up for himself in order to keep him later, _again_. Marrin strolled off whistling, a mile wide smirk spread over his face. It was unreal how someone like that could reach section head on ass-kissing alone. Manners over merits, he supposed. _Derek Marrin. Merits: none. Natural talent: none. Sycophantic_ _instinct: second to none._ Neo cracked his knuckles over the keyboard, dreading the long hours ahead. _If I'm lucky, he'll have to go 'client-developing.' _ Client-developing was code for 'playing golf for credit with partners.' It was a term his father had used way back in the day, when the man had been respectable and a lot less dead.

"Oh, ah, Tom?"

He didn't turn around. "Yeah?"

"Leave your logs in my office, will you? I'm out this afternoon."

He faltered, cocking his head to the side. "Sorry?"

"The Bolstrom Group is throwing a little fete for us on account of our help for their site development." Neo wanted to laugh-their section had almost _nothing_ to do with common internet publishing, but somehow Marrin had secured himself a go-along invite anyway. Marrin waved a hand in front of his face as if Neo had congratulated him for this. "Any how, I'm going to take off after the luncheon, so just leave your logs with me, won't you?" Neo watched his face contort into an unpracticed _I'm-on-your-side-and-I'm-here-to-help _look. "Just want to be able to show Mr. Rhineheardt how serious you are about catching up. Right?"

"Sure."

He fixed on a spot on Marrin's retreating back but couldn't focus. _Weird_. Convenient, but weird. What side of whose bed had he woken up on for this to happen? _Don't question minor miracles_. His logs he could counterfeit in a heartbeat; he could get started on sending the record of his terminal use to Marrin _now_, and be gone when the boss was. _Tricky_, he grimaced, _splitting hairs, aren't we, Tommy-boy?_ God, he hated that, that voice that sounded like a coked-up version of his conscience. It would be _dangerous_ to try meddling so close to home, mostly for the precedent it set. Yet, if the modifications weren't _outrageous_-if they showed him leaving when expected instead of, say, on time or just a _little_ early--and no one noticed him go...

A smile flickered over his lips for a scant moment. Absently, he reached for the stack of papers in his 'IN' tray, hefting them out as he entered his password for the Metacortex network. A single post-it note had been left behind, caught on the bottom of the wire mesh. Neo plucked it up, too, thoughtlessly affixing it to the upper corner of his monitor. When the memo came around that it belonged to, he'd pay it some attention. He glanced at it once to see what memo he was supposed to look for.

The single word on the post-it was written in large blue marker.

** MATRIX**


	11. October 25th, 1997 02:08:31 am CST

**10-25-97**  
**02:08:31 am CST**

"Jesus," Choi muttered, running a hand down his face. It had taken some doing, but he'd shaken Sita, The Dude, Pony, and DuJour to get to the new address. If DuJour hadn't been preoccupied with intimidating Pony, she alone might have been clever enough to figure out how to know where he was going. 

Another _fucking_ phone. He glared at the booth with all the indignance of a patient, methodical gardener who'd just discovered his garden was full of weeds. Hateful thing. _How the hell come there're so many of these things still around?_ Phone booths were a thing of the past. Clark Kent would have to change into his Super-undies in a diner's restroom before he'd find a full-on phone booth in this city any more. And yet the voice on the phone had pointed him to no less than two of the invisible booths still standing in old Chicago.

_Very old Chicago_. Choi whistled. Wells and Lake intersected amid the old industrial slum district, decayed with age to be basically unlivable. He delivered there all the time, and not one single customer of his had a home in the neighborhood. He slunk into the booth that he couldn't ever remember seeing before and dialed the number he'd gotten from the _other_ payphone.

"Yeah."

"It's Choi."

"I know."

_Figures_. "We doing this or what?"

"You have the money?"

"Seven-fifty." He fished into the hidden pocket in his beat-up leather coat, thumbing the edge of a wad of bills. Pony's money. Even if he recouped the losses from hours of inactivity and lost contacts, Pony wasn't seeing a penny of it back. Pony didn't mind--he was paying for DuJour's time, and DuJour's time was directly billable to Choi.

"The drop is at..."

"Wait a second." Choi growled. "I want proof this is fixed if I leave you my cash, man." Irritation, not helped along by the aspect of coming home in the morning to DuJour all worn out from a night with Pony, had him steam-rolling over this bastard who presumed to tell him _his_ business. "I want to know my car is waiting for me when I hang up this phone."

"And how would you like me to do _that_?"

"I want a gesture of faith on your part."

"Do you?"

"Listen," Choi bit down on his lip to keep from snarling, "I'm going out on a limb here. I have work to do and I need that car. You jerk me around and I don't get it, I want to know I can take it out of your ass. You dig?"

"That hardly seems an incentive for me to trust you."

"I don't have any reason to trust _you_, man. I'm asking you for a show of good will here, then I'll see about trusting you."

"And I thought you wanted to deal."

"I _do_, fool." _Jesus, this guy's green. How the hell did Pony get his number from any one? He sounds like he's never done this work._ "But a partnership requires give and take, buddy."

"I prefer silent partners."

"I _am_ silent, man," Choi focused on putting more sweet-talk into his pitch. "You think I'm going to go about calling attention to anything that gets done tonight? Wrong, my friend. You just need to prove to me I'm getting what I need out of this before I roll you the cash."

"How do I know you will once you've got your car?"

Choi grinned. This was going to be fun. "I guess you'd have to come meet me face to face."

A pause. "I don't work like that."

"But I do. I _told_ you that. And besides, can't tell anything about you from a face, partner."

Another, lengthier pause. "I'd prefer a drop."

"Compromise, man, or I go talk to a meter-maid with a grudge."

"You can't threaten me."

_True,_ Choi chuckled to himself, _but I can make you sweat it out a little._ He'd let on how much he needed his wheels, that had been his mistake. This guy had let it slip, through his penchant for overly dramatic espionage tactics, that he was no expert--even if his paranoia could _pass_ as professional--and that was _his_ mistake.

"Buy you a drink, too."

"Hardly an incentive," the voice repeated, but he wasn't hanging up, wasn't giving up. _Isn't giving in, either,_ Choi conceded, though he imagined this guy was worrying that maybe, _just maybe,_ Choi wasn't bluffing.

"Let me tell you how it is, boss. In this business, you wanna stay unknown. I get that. I'm just betting there's no way I can pin this little favor you're doing me to the you that shows up, is all. You follow?"

Silence. Then, "I'm not happy about this."

"First time for everything, cochise."

"I don't have to ask if you'll be alone, I trust?"

"Sent my crew packing. I'll meet up with them later. Can drop you off wherever you like once my baby's free of the crib."

"Crew?"

"I don't work in the dark like you, man." He worked at _night _but not exactly in a fog of secrecy. His kind of activity worked best through word of mouth. It was the same principle this guy was toying with but trying not to buy totally into. Business didn't work that way. You needed a friend to tell a friend to tell a friend to form a network of clients. Then _they_ came to _you_ and all you had to do from there was pick and chose the ones you allowed access. If he went looking for clients by hiding like this dude, he'd have gone broke ages ago.

"Your car."

"Yeah, what about it? You change your mind?"

"No, not that." _Of course not. He wants money_. _Or,_ Choi blinked stupidly as it hit him,_ or he just really, _really_ wants to see if he can do this_. He'd come closer to the truth than he'd even guessed when he'd sized this guy up as a freshman on the market. It wasn't about the money--it was a test of nerves. Like him when he'd first started, playing it so cool while secretly daring customers to make the request that would evolve him into a criminal, a real scumbag. _This guy's all about being blooded._ The analogy worked pretty well--_hacker wants his first crack at The Life, wants to be a real terrorist and not just a pest._ The difference between a boot camp recruit and a career soldier was experience.

"What then?"

"Meet at your car."

"Works for me, I'm not too far away..._again,_" he let the intended dig carry along the rest of his frustration, removing it and settling him back into placidity. "You need time to get there or what?"

"I'm there already."

"Excuse me?" It wasn't the cleverest retort, but Choi had only just managed to switch it for the stunned "huh?" or the hostile "what the fuck you talking about?" he had instinctively almost said.

"Gesture of faith," the voice mocked.

"You. At _my_ car. When?"

"While you were going to this phone." _Son of a bitch._ Choi whistled. The voice laughed.

"Faith, huh?" 

"If you didn't pay, I got a new car."

"_Hang on_," Choi blurted out. _How the _hell_ was he gonna know I made the drop if he was at my wheels?_ "What the hell are you up to, man?"

"Insurance."

"How were you planning on getting the money?"

"Long story. But you were right. Better this way."

"But you wouldn't have known I'd dropped it..." Choi felt like he was whining; he also felt entitled to whine. His head was spinning.

"I have my ways." This was said in a tone that brooked no opposition and no more questions. "Be here in ten minutes."

"Shit."

"Agreed." This was more nervous.

"I owe you a drink or the gut-busting of a lifetime, pal."

"You can thank me after you get your car."

It was a dare. _A fucking dare!_ This guy had seen his inexperience exposed and was playing at balls again. _Maybe he ain't playing._ God, how did he end up with people like this all the time? People like Sita and The Dude who were too doped up to know they knew nothing and so acted like they knew everything. DuJour who was too feral to restrain herself and keep to veiled threats, and now this guy, putting on airs while walking in the land of sweet ignorance.

"Jesus."

"Not quite."

"Very funny," Choi grumbled. "I'll be there in ten. You better be there man. My wheels better be there."

"As I live and breathe."

Choi hung up. _Yeah, we'll see about that._


	12. July 14th, 1997

**7-14-97**

Lucid's even breathing was keeping her awake again. It never ceased to amaze her how a little thing like the comforting warmth of another body could royally fuck up her sleep cycle. The bite of cold air moving through your lungs, the shiver you couldn't suppress even in your sleep...these were the creature discomforts that you missed when you slept with someone. _It's only been a week. Give it time, Trinity._ She tried to will herself to sleep, but there was nothing doing.

Not one for dramatics, she slipped stealthily from the narrow bed; Lucid rolled into the permanent sag in the middle. She paused to consider his sleeping form, shook her head and reached for a second shirt and her sweater. Lucid was naked beneath her tattered blanket, still flush with the warmth they'd generated together. She thought he was nuts, lying exposed to the frigid air--until the heat drove her to an insomniacal retreat. _25,000 BTUs_, she snorted to herself, _and all of them coming down from orgasm. No wonder it feels like an oven in here._

Escaping to the frozen stillness of night outside her room--was it just her imagination or was it less humid out here as well?--Trinity let her feet take her off in the first convenient direction. Instincts were to be rewarded, given as much leeway as possible just short of letting them get you killed. Her instincts drove her to work, to leave the messy inconsistencies of a personal life behind with her slumbering lover, and, finally, to collapse in a chair in front of the monitors in the Core.

_Lover_. The word had come unbidden, and she shuddered. _I don't get to have 'lovers.' I get love or a fuck._ For what was not even the first time that _day_, she cursed the Oracle. Lovers were for heroines of romance novels, women with breasts larger than their IQs, who were rescued by handsome strangers that--_miraculously--_found them more attractive than their plain-Jane supporting character. In the drama of her life, who would be the mousy best friend?

_You don't have any friends._

That wasn't true, she frowned, half-heartedly settling herself into a position she might be able to tolerate for however long it was she couldn't sleep. She had friends--as far as such things went in the real world. The real world didn't have friendships so much as arranged partnerships characterized as being neither sexual nor familial in nature. Sex and family were easier bonds to identify because they were definite, either you fucked or you shared blood. Friendships were only the absences of these things. Absences were always hard to describe--how did you describe the lack of something? Not something missing or negative, just never there to begin with?

_Maybe allies is a better word_. She would die for her crew--_Morpheus' crew--_if she had to, but she'd also leave one behind if it meant more would survive, herself included. She had an unfair advantage, however; it was all well and good to say she would die for them when she knew that _wouldn't_ happen, at least not until the One showed up. Easier to be brave in the face of possible sacrifice if you knew it wouldn't be asked of you. 

So, where did that leave her? Not knowing _sucked_. It was what had driven every member on the _Neb'_s current roster of rebels out of their safe, sheltered pods and into the cool drink of the real world. She stared accusingly at the Matrix feed, the only incoming data stream that, save for sentinel brushes, was never turned off. And this onboard a ship which had to cycle through the amenities of lighting and heating in order to stay outside of Zion for more than a week at a time. Everywhere the code showed a million coppertops living without knowing and getting along just fine. An emotion, perhaps best classified as jealousy, flared in her gut.

A single code flickered midway down the screen, overwriting a previous entry by replacing a few symbols and backing up the rest of the string. _A deja vu_, she scanned it to see what had been rewritten, just in case it was an _ally_ in trouble. The signature wasn't one she recognized; it was just a routine cleaning program. The Matrix, for all its intricacies, was far from perfect. The machines understood this and did regular sweeping, like virus checking for glitches in their reality, which they then fixed with a temporary suspension of said reality--using a glitch to solve a glitch.

This glitch was rewriting an editorial in the _Chicago Sun-Times_, one, she noted with a start, delving into the security problems at the IRS. Trinity startled herself with a genuine laugh, unmarred by irony or bitterness. All those years she'd spent preparing, studying, and practicing for what now seemed a systemic problem for the IRS: hacker access. From the ship, she couldn't read the contents of the article, just the few details that could be pulled out of the overlaying code.

She glanced over at her chair, running a finger over her lower lip. _Tempting_. Morpheus frowned on unsupervised solo runs, especially as, given how many people lived aboard the _Neb_, there was bound to be someone around who had the time to play operator. Yet this seemed justifiable--Morpheus might even get a kick out of knowing why she'd gone in. It was just a personal thing with her. _I am _the_ Trinity, after all_. How nice of someone to have finally picked up on the hacker pilgrimage she had started years and years ago.

Calling up an automatic exit program wasn't too difficult; Cypher had written one he stored in the general files. Trinity's hand floated over the keyboards, fingers darting over without looking at the touch screens, loading an entry just inside the Balbo St. El Station. One of the few places where the El ran underground, in a rough neighborhood to boot, they'd never had a problem with anyone lingering around the hardline.

Force of habit, she checked house-cleaning duties left for the next operator. It might win her a few points should Morpheus take this flimsy excuse to indulge in vanity with less humor that she might like. Hardlines destroyed: none. Possibly compromised exits: Wells and Lake--a drunken pair of college kids had been stumbling through last time Cypher'd used it; he didn't think they'd seen him, but it merited a double-check. She set a timer for that exit, planning to use it when she was finished by means of a test, and set a second timing algorithm for an alternate exit--otherwise, if Wells and Lake was a bust, she'd be stuck until an operator came along. At three in the morning, or even five--if she stayed in that long--that might take some time.

Potentials to be scanned: none. Passovers to clear: one--Neo. Morpheus should have removed him months ago, reported Neo a lost candidate, and moved on. Ultimately, it was his call, and while he was distracted by trying not to mention anything at all about the One to Lucid, no one had called him in to clear out Neo's file. The post-investigatory report showed no reason to keep him on, either; if Neo had been mediocre before, he was beyond their concern now.

_Still..._A shiver ran up and down her spine. Even now, months later, she remembered him, remembered their one and only non-interaction more vividly than she ought to have. Remembered his _smile_. Unconsciously, she ran her tongue over her upper lip, humming throatily. Half her attraction to Lucid was his smile, but as attractive as it was, it didn't haunt her like Neo's had. Morpheus had no clue how easy it was to pretend Lucid wasn't the One; he had never seen that smile.

_I could clean this up while I'm in there_.

No harm in that was there? Closure was a good thing. She reset the exit programs to give her a little more time inside and strolled over to her loading chair. Jacking herself in, she closed her eyes, opening them only when the broken rhythm of random clanking morphed into the sharp ringing of a telephone. A cursory sweep confirmed, as ever, that the Balbo St. Station was clear; she picked up the phone and dropped it back into its cradle.

Pre-dawn light tinted the streets and buildings a melancholic blue-gray, which chased over the curves of her body in highlighted streaks on the smooth patent leather. A cigarette fell from the lips of a vendor not yet old enough to be unappreciative of such a woman appearing on his corner. A bemused smirk fixed on her lips, she turned her hips resolutely to walk towards him. He gaped at her like a landed fish, blinking as she bent for a paper and held out a twenty to him.

"For the paper."

"Uh-yuh." He made no move to take the money from her, so she let it fall, about-faced, and strode towards an anonymous alleyway. A sigh of pleasure escaped her lips as she disappeared into the dingy side street; she ran one hand along the smooth black finish on the bike that seemed to have just rolled off the assembly line and into the alley just for her. It had, technically, but it didn't lessen her delight with it. On a bike like this, she felt like she could fly. A helmet hung from the left handlebar, a default programmed along with the wheels. Befitting the playful reason she had entered the Matrix, Trinity back-flipped, kicking out at the helmet and sending it flying upwards. It landed several feet away, thanks to the extra horizontal momentum she provided it with a silenced .45. _No sense in waking the locals._

Feet firmly on the pegs, she revved the bike, tingling as it roared to life between her legs. Her thoughts fled at the intensity of the illusion, the simple pleasure it brought; she had to forcibly drag back rationality from where it had disappeared into unadulterated bliss. She glanced at the paper in her hands, trying to ignore the rumble of the motorcycle and search for the editorial. _Ah, fuck it, I can get another._ She tossed it over her shoulder, spun the back tire to reverse herself and took off.

The only problem with returning to the Matrix for such delights was they were never without risks, and minimizing the risk inevitably meant minimizing the fun. No speeding was a given; this conflicted with her natural inclination which boiled down to two prime directives: _go fast_ and _go faster._ Losing the helmet was about the only risk she took--at least that way, the wind could tug at her hair and allow the Matrix to create the illusion of the illusion she was going faster than she was.

Wells and Lake was farther away than the last apartment they had listed for Neo. Trinity pretended practicality--and not a certain nagging voice--dictated that, logically, she make Neo's place her first stop. Typically, these things were done from the outside, but, if anyone caught her on the ship, she had the perfect excuse. _Morpheus started it._ And, as crazy as it seemed, no one ever 'physically' investigated potential recruits before the one and only meeting. You watched from the ship or piggybacked on the person's activities with downloaded hardware in the Matrix. Then you met, through pills at them and let them choose. End of personal interaction.

You definitely didn't pick the lock on their door, bother them at work, or talk to them prior to freeing them. _Or climb their fire escape._ She cursed herself for not making a more thorough check on Neo's location before jacking in; spying was her only resort. _And he would have to live on the first floor._ Which was why she had to prop herself against the lower most rung of the fire escape ladder that dangled just beside his apartment window. Upside down. If anyone were awake at--she checked the watch she'd downloaded set to Chicago time--five in the morning, and looking down the alley beside Neo's apartment complex, it might have been quite a sight.

The only one who seemed to be awake besides her, however, was Neo. His computer station faced parallel and ninety degrees away from her, showing the sides and backs of some of his monitors. An impressive though dated stereo system occupied a prominent place next to his hardware, complemented with the overly large but high-quality headphones Neo wore. Expensive equipment for what she knew he made on his meager salary. It might explain why the rest of the apartment more closely resembled the living quarters of a squatter instead of a paying tenant. Why Neo himself wore a ratty t-shirt with a collar sporting several rips and holes at the collar.

It was, in all, a very different setting from the one she and Morpheus had encountered him in a few months ago. Nonetheless, the man was the same; he sported an identical bland, indifferent look. At least Neo managed to appear intent on his screen, small blue rectangles of light reflected in his wide brown eyes. They were his sole feature that showed any interest or emotion. His eyebrows twitched occasionally as he scanned what he was reading. Long minutes passed between each time he blinked. Assuming his absorption, she risked shifting her position by walking along the top edge of his sill with her hands then pulling herself up onto the tiny ledge just on the other side. To anyone else, it might only have seemed wide enough to support a pigeon; to her, it was a mile-wide foothold, and she flipped up onto it with the poise of a supremely confident cat.

_Great minds_, she laughed, surprised at how easily another fluid smile flew to her lips. He was reading the editorial she'd come for at the _Times_' website, the headline alone large enough for her to read at this distance. So, he hadn't _totally_ given it all up. _Doesn't matter. He's still too old, and he's still too inexperienced_. Disappointment flared with this admission, as did a contrary emotion she couldn't place--defiance? Hope? _Routing for the underdog, are we?_

_Shut up._

But she didn't leave. Couldn't drown out that voice that hadn't died months ago but had only been subdued. _You like the scrappers, Trinity. You're a fan of the little guy. Look at Lucid_. Yes, there was a _brilliant_ idea. In the midst of a mission to wrap up the file on a passover, by all means, take the time to have a soul-searching regarding your love life. __

_Not my style._

_No?_ Damn that voice.

_No._ If the _Neb'_s crew knew that she even had to have this conversation with herself, they'd be floored; Teflon Trinity expected the best and didn't tolerate anything less. _Fan of the underdogs, my shiny ass._

_And Lucid is _what,_ then exactly? Knight in shining armor?_ That much she didn't need to deny. She didn't need a hero. She was the best there was, and she didn't _need_ anyone's help. The words 'damsel in distress' had never, _would_ _never_ refer to her. This set the inflammatory voice to cackling, her denial not repressing it in the slightest. _Tough girl, you are. No cowboy with silver spurs, no debonair super-spy for you._

_But?_ Oh, she _knew_ there was a _big_ 'but' coming.

_But that doesn't stop you from adopting a puppy or two._

She snorted at that and at the debate itself. _Get a grip, Trinity. You're starting to lose it._ This sobered her somewhat, though her voice of contention seemed to fade away with a chorus of canine panting. She looked back at Neo, raising an eyebrow as she pictured him as an overly large puppy. It didn't do much to improve her opinion of him. He did seem to have the singularly focused attention span of a small dog, though, staring at his screen like an obsessive-compulsive terrier focusing on a tennis ball.

His lips moved. A word. As before, the moment he opened his mouth to speak, she stopped breathing.

_Woof._

_Shut up!_ She barely had any attention to spare to her cheeky conscience. Her lips tried to imitate the motions of his, to reproduce physically the syllables she couldn't hear so she might decipher them. No good; she was no lip-reader. Looked like maybe three syllables, starting with some puckered sound followed by widening the mouth for two more sounds. _Damn_. He repeated it, shook his head, hit the power button for his monitors, and rose. Without thinking, she leapt upwards into a handstand, propped up on a still slimmer outcropping of bricks lining the top of his window. Only once safely out of sight did the rest of her brain catch up with her instincts--she had moved because Neo was heading for his bed, conveniently located just below the window.

Cautiously, she bent her elbows, leaning down to see into a mere corner of the window to ascertain the likelihood he would wake if she moved back to the fire escape ladder. She could jump it--the ground was _a lot_ closer than many a jump she'd made before--but it would mean risking passing the window in the first place. Better to get to the side where there was no chance of that happening.

_Sure it is. Woof._

There was no reply to this; her mental breath caught again when she peered into Neo's window. In the space of maybe fifteen seconds, he'd covered the distance to his bed and passed out on top of it. Face down, his head had missed the pillow, one arm bent so that his hand rested next to his face, the other thrown to his side, one leg only half on the bed that seemed too small for his frame. A few hairs flopped over to cover his forehead, casting shadows above his eyes to match the dark circles underneath. She indulged in this one of her few weaknesses--fascination with people sleeping. They always seemed so different, better somehow, less hard. When she saw her own face, she saw only steel, could never imagine it softening like it did for everyone else. Neo appeared passive, lethargic, and blank while awake. Now, he seemed...

_Beautiful._

_Woof._

She swallowed once then cartwheeled off the sill towards the ladder, bracing herself against the rusted metal and paused. Her head snapped back to Neo's window. Nothing. A tumble to the ground, another tensed spring-back, still half-expecting Neo to appear, or worse, to morph into an Agent. And still, nothing. The walk back to her Ducati left her fluttering no matter how many times she jerkily shook out her arms. _Get a grip._

Painful though it was, she ditched the Ducati ten blocks before Wells and Lake, preferring not to draw attention to the location by driving through on a smooth but reasonably loud machine. En route, she passed another news kiosk, one whose attendant paid her attire considerably less attention than the last one had done; this was about the right hour and right place for goth clubbers to slink back home from a night out. He didn't blink as she left him a twenty for the paper either, presumably because many a doped-up, strung-out, or just plain tired customer had done the same at that hour. 

Casually, in no real hurry as the timing program wouldn't be set for a while yet, she thumbed through the paper to the editorial section. It was a shame she didn't have the original to compare the article against, seeing as the _deja vu_ had cleaned up the article--no doubt along with the mind that had written it--before she'd jacked in. As was, for an outsider job, the author seemed pretty spot-on. His complaints were reasonable--why should honest citizens trust an organization as riddled with problems as the IRS, especially when anyone with just enough savvy could pop onto its servers and screw it up more? It was a historical article more than anything else, documenting the numerous _known _system breaches; his italics, too, meaning he suspected--_correctly_, she mused--there had been many more _un_known break-ins.

_In this humble author's opinion, the minute the database in Kansas City was breached twelve years ago, the whole system should have been overhauled. Taken offline, if necessary, to protect the citizens of this country from vicious data pirates bent on creating more trouble for an organization that really needs no help on that score. In a way, we owe that anonymous pirate--one might call him a hacker pioneer--a thank you for showing the IRS the vulnerability of their system. Thanks on delivery when the IRS gets its act together. Until such time, wherever you are, masked avenger, thanks, but no thanks._

That must have been the change, she figured. Her name. The Matrix operated using complex logic patterns--Artificial Intelligence implied just that: it was intelligent. As such, it could not cause the article to unexist entirely. There would be a problem of too many questions, too many memories to wipe out or modify to prevent people like her taking advantage of it. Instead, they edited out names, consigning hers to the void in hopes that time would take care of her infamy. It ought to have irritated her, but Trinity tossed the paper carelessly into the next curbside rubbish bin. In the war for the truth, one person's name meant nothing. And those who looked hard enough could always find traces. The reporter had found the evidence of her most legendary hack, so it stood to reason there were others who would do the same. Pass on the information like precious treasure.

Wells and Lake. A block away, the phone already ringing. _Shit_. Someone had overridden the timer, which meant that someone was _awake_, watching for her to round the corner and be in sight of the phone. To any god that would listen, she prayed it wasn't Morpheus or Lucid. Lucid might get the wrong idea; they were too new in their relationship for him to know better. Morpheus, well, Morpheus would want a credible explanation. And she had one, she did. She could afford to leave out the article, say she intended to test the phone, make the final closing on Neo's file...

Trinity stopped short of the phone booth. If she told Morpheus Neo was as dead a file as he'd assumed...._he'd delete the file._ An unwelcome roll of her stomach protested against this idea. Simply, she didn't want him to do that. A million and one excuses flooded her brain, excuses she had to sift through to find one that would sound credible enough to justify Morpheus' continued oversight of Neo's file. Maybe Neo wasn't totally hopeless. He still lived the lifestyle in a way, kept up with current events even if he didn't partake. He read the news, didn't he? Paid it special attention? Maybe he knew what words had been glossed over in the editorial, could read between the lines...

Her hand clenched around the phone, but her arm muscles refused to lift the receiver. Her heartbeat was in her ears, louder than the insistent, accusatory ringing. She lost the image of a suspicious captain or irate lover waiting back on a frosty ship for her consciousness to return to her. All she _could_ envision were Neo's lips, laughably exaggerated by awareness, forming the shape of three syllables she knew like the back of her hand.

_Trin-i-ty._

"_Fuck_," she breathed out, wondrous.

She picked up the phone.


	13. February 19th, 1998

**2-19-98  
Heathrow Airport, London, England**

No one trusts an employee who doesn't take his vacation time. Neo had lost a week of it to 'sick' days, thanks to that goddamned post-it. He'd read it, flipped out, and stayed at home trying to decipher the only clue he had: Matrix. He'd also slept and talked himself into going back to Metacortex. That left him one more week, which he planned to spend in front of his computer eating cereal without milk because that was all he had. Stocked up on Kix, Honey-Nut Cheerios, and Lucky Charms, locked in his apartment, declared 'gone for the week' while he sat at his computer station until his eyes fell closed on their own. Choi would need a week's notice of his 'departure,' so he'd give him one. Then the week was his. 

Only Choi hadn't needed a week. He'd shown up two weeks earlier than previously arranged. When Choi was early, it meant he had company, who wanted to be elsewhere during their business hours, or an emergency. Neo never opened the door the whole way when he had company. The fewer of Choi's friends who knew him, the better. This time all he had was a plane ticket for London. His form of payment instead of three grand.

"The fuck good does that do me?" He remembered looking at the ticket as if it were insulting him. One round-trip to England did not come anywhere near three grand, and Choi had gotten a particularly _nice_ favor this time.

"Get out of town, man."

"I appreciate your attempts to improve my social life, but I prefer cash."

"No, no, I mean _get out of town._" This had temporarily caught him off guard. _Shit._ Choi, smug but earnest, nodded slowly. "Nothing serious, just making sure things are still on the level with a few pals of mine."

"Goddamnit, you are not supposed to involve me in your shi-"

Choi hadn't waited for the full tirade. He pocketed the disk he'd come for, and in the process come up with a wad of twenties. "That's four all together. Get lost. Don't you have vacation time or something coming up?" _As a matter of fact..._ "First class. Departure date non-negotiable." He had nodded at the ticket. Neo opened it and passport fell out of the folder. Choi nodded again. "Just in case." A _clay_ passport, one that, with careful modifications, worked for just about anyone--something Neo was accustomed to providing, not _receiving._ Neo had looked him in the eye, and Choi grinned. "I keep my word, Tommy-boy. You're not involved. I take care of you if you take care of me. You get back from Jolly Ol'England, and it's happy family time again, promise."

Neo had handed him back the extra money. "I'm going to have to trust you, I guess."

Choi paused, looking him over as he took the roll back. "I'm serious, man, don't just stay here. It ain't the police you gotta worry about. Don't you fucking dare stay here in front of those goddamned..._things_"--Choi's distrust for computers never failed to amuse him--"and waste this. Get out, and don't come back for a while. A week ought to do it."

"Yeah, I guess." He had planned on just junking the ticket and laying low in his apartment. But Choi was never unnecessarily paranoid--not like he was; if Choi said run, he had better keep up.

"That's my boy," Choi grinned, all ease and friendliness again. His usual self with only a hint of underlying tension. "Have fun. See the sights. _Get laid_." Choi put significant emphasis on the last two words. He had then spun on his heel then and strode off down the hall. Singing, badly, "Tommy, can you hear me? Can you feel me near you? Tommy, can you see me? Can I help to cheer you--Oh, hey Mrs. C!"

When drug dealers are on nick-name basis with your landlady, it's time for a vacation. Heathrow. Arriving at seven in the morning played hell with his inner clock, especially since he'd been awake for the whole flight. Choi's going away package hadn't included sedatives. Hewouldn't have taken them if he'd had them, either. Weird dreams. He preferred his blurred reality to his subconscious. So, instead of sleep, he dreamt awake, mostly of falling from the sky. Heights, flying, none of this was his thing. He hadn't been on a plane in ten years.

Which, thanks to Murphy's Law, was exactly why his luggage never made it off the plane. Well, to be fair to the good throwers working for British Airways, his luggage had never made it _on_ to his plane in the first place. An overly perky brunette had batted her eyes at him, looked sympathetic, took his hotel information in exchange for two other phone numbers; one was the number to call to check on his luggage, one was hers.

"Call me," she winked at him, "I would love to show you around."Her flirtation caught him off guard. Without exception, people taking an interest in him made him nervous, women more so because he didn't quite understand them. And, unfortunately, they always took his stupefied silence as honest or intentional coyness. This woman--Barbara, according to her name tag--wasn't any different. "Least I can do to make up for this, this _inconvenience_," she purred. 

"Thanks," he managed, attempting a swaggering eyebrow move that was apparently successful. Though he felt more than a little goofy, she smiled, winked, and turned to help another customer. On his mental to do list, he crossed off: _Get laid._ Other than that, he had to 'see the sights,' and that required reading material. The blessing of airports was that people in them wanted to know about _everywhere_ just in case they were going there. He grabbed a coffee in a to-go cup and walked toward a travel shop.

"Good morning, how are you, sir?" _Another morning person, terrific. _He smiled for the girl behind the counter, pausing momentarily to consider moving on, finding another shop. Being around another happy-go-lucky face at this hour would ruin his temporary high. Luckily, she returned to helping her customer, a bald, dark man who was purchasing a pack of mints. Neo ducked around inflatable neck pillows, universal AC adaptors for laptops, and the like. Looking down at his watch--_was it really only nine-thirty?_--was his undoing, however, as he ended up jostling the guy at the counter en route to the travel books.

"Sorry," he mumbled without looking up.

"Do not trouble yourself," the man replied, his voice a rich bass. The formal speech, the American accent, both were out of place, and he turned, surprised. But the man was leaving, the flaps of his dress coat moving as though he carried his own personal wind; his gait suggested he, if anyone, could possess the power to have such a thing.

Apparently, the salesgirl thought so, too. It took her until he was out of sight to exclaim, "Have a nice day!" before focusing on Neo. "What a pleasant fellow he was." Shrugging perfunctorily, he plucked out a pocket guide to London to flip through. He buried his nose in it so as to effectively end this attempt to draw him into conversation. It took time and a few other early morning travelers for her to take the hint. Midway through the 'Places to Eat' chapter, he looked up to see if she was upset by him reading in the store. That didn't appear to be the case, and he'd only been there ten minutes anyway. Maybe he could glean a bit more information before putting the book down and heading off to an internet café in the city for the meat of his research. No way he was paying airport internet prices, and no way was he going to tempt fate and cheat a little free time. Not with airport security being what it was.

"Attention, Attention, Paging Mr. Jones. Paging Mr. Jones. Mr. Jones, will you please report to Terminal Four information desk. Attention, Mr. Jones, please report to the information desk in Terminal Four. Thank you." Neo listened to the broadcast announcement with only half an ear, absorbed in trying to decipher where his guide book said was the best Thai restaurant near his hotel. In fact, the quest for Thai food distracted him for a good thirty seconds before the announcement gave him pause. _Mr. Jones? Aren't there like millions of people named 'Jones'?_ Maybe not in England, maybe. _Still_..._weird._

Halfway through the second repeat of the page for Mr. Jones, the PA system switched over to a different voice. A man was saying something about not panicking, that there was a situation. Neo didn't hear any of that message. He'd raised his head to listen to the repeat of the first message only to catch sight of a troop of men in black suits running past the travel shop, some pulling their sidearms. _Oh God_. An afternoon of waiting for the stewardess to get off work, noodles for lunch, all of it gone in that instant. _Jesus. _Shock, then denial. _No_.

Some self-preservation instinct formulated escape routes in the back of his head, mapping out the shortest route to bathrooms--_good place to lose them, ducking into stalls_--and exits--_which ones would be wired to an alarm? _The salesgirl whimpered and ducked behind her counter when the emergency broadcast repeated instructions for everyone to remain calm and stay where they were. He couldn't do that. He _couldn't_ do that. He couldn't _do_ that. He'd be caught, off to jail because he let some pusher convince him to go abroad with a fake passport and what if the ticket wasn't any good in the first place...?

A second group thundered past the store, one man shouting into his walkie-talkie, "Terminal Four! We've got a situation in Terminal Four! Suspect cornered by the public phone bank next to Gate 7!" They were there and gone, leaving him frozen and twitching, unsure how to calm himself down. _They aren't after you, idiot, breathe, breathe, breathe..._

_Wait a minute._ He jerked his legs forward, forcing himself to move, dropping the travel guide to the floor. A sign just outside the shop listed various directions passengers could remove themselves to, the same ones he'd been running over in his head in those short seconds he though his life as a free man was over. Toilets. Baggage Claim. Customs. Help Desk. Terminals One, Two, Three. And the last, Gates 1-19, thataway. Where Security was running, where he'd disembarked. Where that guy with the expensive clothes and American accent had gone.

Outside the confining glass of the store, Neo stared down the length of the hall. The second team disappeared left, down towards the first ten gates in the terminal. People coweredunder airport lounge chairs. He saw a mother throw her body over her children, both of whom were screaming, alarmed by the sirens and the men shouting. Chaos. People were running, too, unmindful the warning to stay put. In the middle of a wide hall, they collided with him in their frenzy to escape.

Neo walked forward. Towards the problem, towards the unknown danger. _Maybe my luggage arrived,_ a nonsensical part of his brain offered. _Maybe Barbara will come this way and we can leave together_. _Wouldn't that be lovely? _His inner monologue was using words like 'lovely.' Things were worse than he thought. Yet, it didn't _feel_ like danger. It felt like coiling, storing up potential energy that he could finally release once he knew what was happening. Excitement like the promise of sex later this evening, relief like the landing only a couple of hours before. Neo's mind floated while his legs took heavy, certain steps forward.

Then it shattered. A horde of armed men, some in suit and tie, some in black fatigues, _all_ of them armed, flew past him. A minute later, one man followed. He wore a black suit, like the rest of the regular security personnel, but he had an earpiece, against which he cupped his hand. Otherwise, the most apt description of the man was _non_descript. Middle-aged, mid-height, mid-weight, brown hair.

"What's going on?"

His question appeared to annoy this officer. "Pardon me, sir, this is a security manner. Please step aside." He spoke in perfect placeless English. No accent to it to give him away as a Cockney or Beatles-esque Liverpudlian. Blandly British, as featureless as the rest of him. Neo watched him round a corner, counted to ten, then sprinted for the end of the branching terminal. He saw people starting to rise, to ask themselves and strangers 'was it over?' knowing none of them had the answer. Kept going, past the BA help desk where Barbara had held his hand over lost luggage, now forgotten. On, on towards the phones. Gate 9, Gate 8, Gate 7..._There! There!_ The phone bank.

One of the receivers dangled by its cord.


	14. February 19th, 1998

**2-19-98  
****The Desert of the Real**__

Human instinct acted to keep people alive by telling them what, even this modern world, they could not and _should not_ do. Instinct told them not to jump off cliffs that were too high because they didn't have wings; not to pick up hot coals because fire was friend and enemy all at once; not to hesitate when they felt threatened because there were many more things that could hurt you than you could hurt on your own. And, usually, instinct also said that bothering the biggest guy on the block was a monumentally stupid idea.

The _Neb's_ crew paid attention when Dozer said something so blase as, "I don't think this is a good idea," with a certain crease in his brow. Even Trinity listened to him, though he suspected that was more because Morpheus did and she deferred to Morpheus. This was typically the case, which was the whole problem with this one exception. Morpheus lay on his medical table with a ghost wound from a sniper round. None of the regular guards would ever have gotten so close, so, once he'd been spotted, the Agents activated a sniper. Under his care, such a wound meant nothing more than some anesthesia and some stitches. Not too serious in and of itself.

It just meant that Trinity was in charge while Morpheus was under, and they still had another man in. Cypher had jacked in to take the hand-off from Morpheus. He would track their latest target, Neo, for about five to ten hours before passing him off to someone else. Cypher was competent, Dozer couldn't imagine he'd have any trouble finding Neo on his own without Morpheus' heads-up. But an Agent had just tried to _kill_ Morpheus, and that meant they were playing a whole new game. Protocol demanded they drop their target _fast_ and focus on triple-checking that all other members of the Resistance active in the area were safe.

"I'll do that," Trinity informed him. Not reassuring, not placating, not ordering, just letting him know while letting him know he had no choice in the matter.

"Trinity, that's not the way these things are _done_," Dozer grimaced as he closed the wound on Morpheus' shoulder with a final stitch. Damn it, he needed Tank. He was too much of a nice guy for Trinity to follow his lead, size be damned. Tank, Tank could talk the Devil back into Heaven and never lose his smile.

"It's the way we're doing it now."

"Cypher's _in_, let him do it. We can pick up on Neo again later..."

"And what if they pick up on him first while we're covering our own asses?" He settled on a frown, not sure how to argue with that. The Resistance and her fighters came first, but each candidate lost was one more blow to a crew barely holding itself together as was. If the Agents took out this guy after all the work they'd put into him, some people onboard the _Neb _would come to blows. Mouse and Cypher, for one. Apoc and Switch, too. Everyone was spoiling for a fight, taking sides over Neo. He and Tank couldn't understand it, but then they never understood what singled out the people Morpheus chose. He suspected no one on the _Neb_ did; all the arguments were just efforts to prove otherwise.

"I don't like it. Two people in, greater risk. Cypher drops him for maybe an hour to leave messages around for our people, we pull him, signal Zion to see who we've missed or should expect to hear from, then we can come back to the surface. We're gone a maximum of four, maybe five hours." It was a good plan. If anything were going to happen to Neo, it would definitely happen in that time, sooner rather than later.

"No." She turned to leave. That was her whole argument. Why was she even talking at him then? Because that was what she was doing. Using him to figure out what she wanted to do instead of asking him what she _should_ do. Because if she brought this up with Switch, next in the chain of command, Switch would tell her 'no' and then make good on it. However, he was just a medic, and she was his boss.

He sighed, his hands never faltering as he tied off his thread. "Switch is going to be _pissed_." It was her watch, too, after Cypher was done. No way would Trinity be able to talk her into doing the recall, ergo Trinity would have to do it herself and warn Cypher, if he didn't already know. Neo had been in the vicinity at the time, too. Way too much in the vicinity, actually. "Trinity, we've lost this guy already, haven't we?"

At the door, she repeated herself. "No. No, we haven't lost him yet."

"But we have," he admonished. _We have_. Agents would know he was there, would put two and two together and Neo would be gone even if she took these extra steps to ensure his safety. "We can't go back for him, now. Morpheus got too close, and he got busted too close. We've already passed him by once now, no _way_ we can go back for him after this," he gestured helplessly at Morpheus' prone form.

"Yes, we can."

At times like this, facing odds such as they faced, Dozer wanted to hear a hint of uncertainty creep into her voice. He wanted each successive denial of the cold, hard truth to lose strength, to be less convincing. Such was never the case. It's why he didn't stop her, not now when he could--could give _her_ a sedative, too, and risk the consequences later. Didn't stop her when he heard her barking orders at his brother downstairs. Tank would jack her in, as ordered, thinking nothing of it, though he knew standard procedure better than anyone else--especially among a crew so willing to ignore protocol.

"God, she's got the biggest hard-on for this guy," Mouse said, poked his head around the entryway.

"Shut up, Mouse." Trinity's love life was one of his favorite subjects, and he was not so easily deterred. As Dozer washed up, Mouse grinned at him from the doorway, hands in pockets, ears wiggling. "What, what?"

"Aww, come on, I heard you guys. You're thinking the same thing."

"Not in the _way_ you are, Mouse. Big. Difference."

"_Everybody_ thinks the way I do. They just don't admit it," Mouse pulled one hand from his pocket to wag a finger at Dozer. Dozer shrugged; indifference would spare him another one of the Great Mouse's diatribes about the pent-up sexuality raging in every human being. It was the kind of luxury only the single enjoyed. Marriage and family put a whole new perspective on sex and lust. Sex became a pleasure of opportunity, stolen when both partners had the time and the kids were asleep. Lust drove people mad in the mean time, so it was best not to indulge in it. 

"Why don't you go help Tank, Mouse?"

"Help him what?" Mouse raised and dropped his bony shoulders. It bothered him, as a physician, that so few poddies ever put on much weight, even ones freed as young as Mouse. Dozer ate the same food they did, sometimes eating less to be sure they got _more_ because they always looked like they needed it. One of these days, he was going to tie Trinity and Mouse to the bench in the mess and force feed them till he could find some fat on them. Their leanness struck him as unnatural; he felt more comfortable with Morpheus, Apoc, and Cypher, all of whom put on weight reliably.

"I dunno, kid, go learn something."

"Don't call me that," Mouse flinched at the name. That was his other regret, that Mouse had to flinch when reminded of his age. Seventeen years of life did not account for half of what Resistance fighters actually lived. Compared to his contemporaries in the Matrix, hell, even in Zion, Mouse was old, old man. He watched Mouse push off the doorway and scuttle away, presumably to 'go learn something' from Tank. That was good. Tank would find a way to talk Mouse of his funk, and, hopefully, any jokes he planned to make at Trinity's expense. They would get back to her; they _always_ did.

"Dozer," Morpheus said quietly, coming around. He reached for Morpheus' wrist, taking the pulse. Slow but regular and strong. He relaxed somewhat.

"Trinity's not pulling Cypher out."

"Explain." He summarized it. Morpheus did not open his eyes while he recounted her refusal to drop Neo in favor of their friends.

"She's crazy, Captain."

"Is she?"

"This isn't right. Someone else is going to get hurt. I know she can take care of herself and all, but what about Cypher? Or anyone else in the Matrix right now? They might not know what's happened." He shook his head. "This just isn't right."

Morpheus cracked one eyelid open, his pupils dilated but fixed on Dozer. "This _is_ right, Dozer. It's finally, finally right."

"Don't try to get up just yet. Give it a few more minutes at least." The sedative wore off fast--it had to so people could be up and functioning as soon as possible--but not too fast. And if Morpheus tore his stitches, it meant repeating the surgery over again. Morpheus acquiesced, waiting out a goodish length of time before he asked for and received Dozer's help sitting upright.

"What do you want to do once we get them out of there?" He jerked his head towards the door, indicating the two in the Core, still plugged in.

"We'll have to report to Zion, immediately," Morpheus frowned and not from pain. "I want to be sure our people are out. Once we get confirmation, we'll have to explain this accident." That meant time off in Zion, and Dozer's mind flew to Cas. Morpheus' thoughts undoubtedly jogged more in the general direction of what type of reprimands he would have to endure. "This is going to take a lot of finessing before it's okay with the Commander"--another wince--"if it ever can be. But we can't stop now."

"And if they kill him?"

Morpheus' face went gray. "They can't." He slid to his feet and left, gait unhindered by any traces of the drugs in his system. Dozer wanted to follow him to the Core, provide moral support. But Tank was there, and that was enough. He needed to be here instead. _Just in case_. For when the next body needed to be repaired. No small part of him fully believed he _would_ be needed. And soon.


	15. February 19th, 1998 13:10:23 London loca...

**2-19-98**

**London, England**

**13:10:23 local time**

It was hard to kill a person you knew. He'd killed plenty of people he didn't know and had occasionally enjoyed it. A friend was something else, and a ship full of them a greater challenge still. There was no helping it at this point. The Agents weren't biting at his lure; he needed to get their attention and make sure they knew--and that _only_ they knew--who had helped them out.

Morpheus was in the news all of fifteen minutes after the situation resolved itself. Elusive terrorist makes appearance at Heathrow, slips through net of security, eyewitness reports sketchy at best. This could ruin his plans, and he fully expected a phone call, Tank telling him to get out after he put up DO NOT DISTURB signs around the city for their people to find. He'd waited _hours_ and no call. _Damn it._ First Trinity, and now Morpheus was behaving like an amateur over this Neo guy. Whatever the brouhaha was back on the ship, it was keeping people from doing their jobs. Like Tank not calling him, not sending him an exit signal or new orders.

He'd invested so much effort in this set-up, in this _time_, and now it was bye-bye, baby. For the past week, Cypher had systematically winnowed down the _Neb_'s roster to select a fall person for his sacrifice to the Agents. Not Morpheus, they'd want him alive, and this was a definite kill opportunity. Trinity...he didn't want to think about losing her just yet. A part of him understood this plan meant she would die, but he wanted to have one more conversation with her before the machines killed her. Things needed to be said. Maybe even done, should fortune so favor him.

Apoc cared too much. Apoc would want to make sure he was okay if he betrayed any signs of nerves. That was great, if he wanted his ear talked off up to the point where he could hear the Agents capping the guy. Switch didn't care _enough_; she'd be off the phone too soon for a trace. Trinity cornered the market on reticence, but Switch made up for any verbosity on her part by allowing for no discussion. Oh, he was upset by developments involving their latest candidate? That's life, baby, so get over it. Click.

Mouse was naive, still relatively new to reality and unreality. This had singled him out as the front runner, especially given how annoying the kid had been over the past week, ruining his one escape from the cold, dank, metal world. Thanks to some personality mods Mouse'd picked up in Zion, the Lady in Red was making frequent visits to the construct, and Mouse didn't always remember to clean up and reboot after himself. Last time he'd jacked in for some quality time alone, Cypher was greeted by Red Riding Hood naked and cooing: _I love your cock, Mouse. Do it to me?_ No matter his gift for visual imagination, and despite his not inconsiderable verbal skills, Mouse had no vision for acting. Red wasn't a good actress for pornography, even with the assets.

Still, strategy saved Mouse's life for today. The kid was a greenhorn, and his lack of experience equated in Cypher's mind as an asset for later. In the near future, when his plans were settled, the trap sprung and the rest of the rodents scurrying away, he might need Mouse's naivete. Might need him to make a crucial mistake, to trust him at the wrong moment, to serve as a distraction. Plus, there was timing to be considered. If he wanted to do this now, that was. And what better time could there be? Morpheus' narrow escape followed by the death of one of his crew? That couldn't _possibly_ be coincidental, had to be connected, and only he could know they wouldn't have anything to do with each other. It would seem like it to anyone who looked, and that's what counted.

So, as it was _Switch_ who would replace him now, and as the opportunity could not pass him by, he had to hope her game would be off. Rattled by Morpheus' near capture, anyone replacing him had a good chance of slipping up, being so tightly wound they missed something freaking obvious. Best part? He would be forgiven for sounding shook up, too, if he faltered, but he wouldn't. And Switch wouldn't care or notice if he did. Switch was second on his list anyway. She was a career tough, not a computer guru, though she learned what she needed for her shifts. Toughs had ears for guns being cocked, not phones being traced. Rats, though, goons like her could smell them if they didn't play right. Not him. Good old Cypher. _First-class alright for an asshole,_ she'd said once.

Easy-peasy, if you pleasey. Too easy, hence his nerves. He shifted over data pirated from Neo's computers back at his apartment and various security cameras that tracked his movement through London. London was the perfect city for this kind of operation; the surveillance cameras watched every street, and an established means of tracking their target made the job a piece of cake. A delayed feed of Neo arriving at his hotel. One of him from the camera outside an internet cafe. Cypher flipped between photos and personal information on Neo like a coke-addicted ADD case.

He was watching a dead man walking. An ephemeral grin fluttered over his lips. God, he wanted to tell him, too. Security be damned, walk straight up to Neo and tell him: _Someone you don't know has got it so bad for you she's gonna get you killed. Have a nice life._ An image of Neo spilling coffee on his shirt waiting for a taxi wrested a chuckle from him. _Idiot_. Their savior couldn't balance a cup with both hands. He glowered at the photo. Dumping on Neo never improved his mood; it made him think of Trinity and how she preferred a bumbling recluse--albeit an admittedly talented one--to him. If Neo was a pathetic wreck, what was _he_? He was just _good old Cypher_, and damn them all for that.

His mobile phone rang. Cypher stared at it. Do or die time. _Do _and_ die time_, he corrected himself. Answering it was a death sentence.

"Alas poor Switch, we hardly knew ye." He raised an empty hand in mock toast and clicked the send button. "Yeah?"

"Is everything in place?"

_Trinity_. "You weren't supposed to relieve me." He suppressed surprise; her presence made too much sense for him to have ever seen it coming. Her precious pet project might be in danger. That's why Tank hadn't pulled him, why he hadn't spent the past few hours following Morpheus' brush with infamy contacting soldiers on other ships. _She_ had done it, left him to _babysit_.

"I know, but I felt like taking a shift."

_I just bet you did._ No mention of Heathrow. Too dangerous. She would assume he knew enough on his own. Despite her proclivity for bucking protocol for Neo, Trinity never involved anyone else in her personal agenda. He was safe. Safe, he watched the connection as she accessed his computer; she was in the States, thousands of digital miles from him. If Morpheus' stunt screwed him over, she was still safe, too. _Bitch_. God, if she'd been there in the room, he would have strangled her. Shot her. Beaten her. Raped her. Done something to make her voice tremble and sound less smugly indifferent when he knew she was excited, obsessed. There was a clicking noise. Maybe he would get his chance. _Better make these last words count, bucko_.

Petulant. "You like him, don't you?" Then, sulky. "You like watching him." Of course, the answer was yes. Beyond the fact she tracked his every movement, absorbed every detail of his life and outlined them down to the minutiae in her reports. _Mouse _could see that, but for all his hyperactive libido, he didn't see what Cypher saw. Didn't see Trinity lick her lips until they were chapped when she watched Neo in the Core, didn't understand just how many rules she broke to keep Morpheus interested in him.

"Don't be ridiculous." Her face, staring back at him from memory, a thousand times. No sneer, no curl of her lip or raise of an eyebrow. She was so good at telling him he was shit without doing anything at all, and _oh_, sometimes he loved that, loved it. _Hurt_ so _good, just for good old Cypher_. And he believed her when she reprimanded, believed he was _shit--if only she knew--_because, like every thing she said, Trinity always meant it. Maybe she'd been born without a sense of humor. The urge built, the need to hurt, to wound, to reach through three thousand plus miles of the Matrix and hit her, once, square in that boxy jaw of hers.

He voiced the fury as frustration. "We're gonna kill him, understand that?" _I'm gonna fucking go out and do it myself._ Right now, he was. Putting a bullet between her eyes, placing a tail on Neo. Another click. He never thought he would love that sound like he did now. _We're killing him right now, and that's the last thing you're going to do with your life._ Even if she hung up now, got away again, she was dead. And her little dog, too.

"Morpheus believes he is the One." _And don't you forget it._ No, he could never forget, never forget that Morpheus' faith escalated daily, supported and supporting itself in a ceaseless positive feedback loop. All thanks to her.

But, what about _her_? _Morpheus believes, my ass_. "Do you?" The charm slipped through gritted teeth, forked tongue wrapping around sweet words. This was her last chance to admit it, to confess and cleanse her soul.

"It doesn't matter what I believe." Dismissive. _So_ Trinity, but different somehow.

It took all of a second to know, to comprehend.

"You don't, _do_ you?" Bored in tone, anything but in soul. Suddenly, there was a God, and he was smiling on Cypher. _She doesn't think he's the One, she just wants to fuck him._ Morpheus would go to his grave knowing Trinity didn't believe, if he could arrange it. The longer she hesitated to answer, the higher his hopes soared. Everything was coming up Cypher, and _it was about god-fucking-damned time!!!_

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" He answered too quickly, wincing and silently cursing himself for it. _Calm down, idiot_. Breathe, affect nonchalance. _Don't panic_.

"Are you sure this line is clean?"

"Yeah, of course I'm sure." That's right. Good old Cypher, always the one you can count on.

"I better go."

And that was it. So quiet. Not like her. He hated this new her as he hated and loved the old Trinity. The Trinity who cleaned up in the construct and mowed 'em down in the Matrix. Ruthless Trinity, commanding Trinity. Tell-you-where-you-can-stick-it Trinity. _Cypher-Shut-Up-Get-Over-Here-And-Fuck-Me-Already _Trinity from his dreams (_that_ was acting). _His_ Trinity. Gone, gone and replaced with a whisper. Soft Trinity. Being-destroyed-slowly-and-loving-it Trinity. Morpheus' Trinity. _Neo's_ Trinity. Not _his_.

The phone rang again almost as soon as Trinity disconnected, while he was still lost in the empty breathiness of her last words. There was no time to wonder at what he might have said, what she might have heard, what was about to happen. Trinity was dead. _Dead_. No way she could walk out of this one, no way. Her guardian angel was about to be caught unawares. Incessant bleeping cut through his stupor; he hit send and raised his mobile to his ear.

"Mr. Reagan."

"Speaking."

"We know." This voice was the one that always contacted him. He knew, logically, that there had to be more than one agent in the system--hell, even if they were damn near identical, he'd _seen_ different ones. Nonetheless, he _knew_ that he had only ever talked to this one, whichever one this was.

"Who are you?"

"You may call me Agent Jones."

"Jones, right. You satisfied I'm for real?" No time to dick about. If--and it would take a miracle--_if_ Trinity waltzed out of this, he would have some explaining to do. The last thing he wanted was for this to have all been for naught. Running the wrong side of Trinity's temper was not something to risk foolishly.

"We will see."

"What else do you need?"

"Our voice recognition protocols indicate that this is not Morpheus."

"It's Trinity." There was a pause, what he assumed was the program absorbing and relaying this information. "I told you, you don't get Morpheus until I get what I want."

"That will be difficult, Mr. Reagan. Morpheus is quite elusive, we are not sure you are capable of assisting in his capture. We are not willing to discuss the matter of your return until you demonstrate to us that you are in a position to deliver."

_Fan-fucking-tastic._ He was a dead man. Just his luck. Trinity would dance through them, find a way, just like always, and if she suspected _anything_, he was a dead man when she got out. Worse, the Agents didn't believe he could bring them Morpheus. Trinity was going to kill him because the logic programming of these Agents didn't include any parameters for trust. Their judgments were predicated on proof. _Proof! They want _proof,_ I'll give 'em proof!_

"Neo."

"What, Mr. Reagan?"

"Check your goddamned guest list in there, Jones. Neo. Morpheus is after a guy named Neo. You find Neo, you'll smell Morpheus all over him."

"We will keep this in mind, Mr. Reagan." Jones was dismissive, as thought the conversation were already over.

"You do that, Jonesy, but you remember who told you."

"Rest assured, Mr. Reagan, we will."

"I have your word?" He needed it. It was his lifeline.

"Of course, Mr. Reagan. We honor all our agreements. It is a trait sadly lacking only in your species."

What he meant was the machines hadn't developed the capacity to lie as well as their creators. Even the Oracle, with her penchant for omitting details, never _lied_, not directly. There was another click, and Agent Jones was gone. After Trinity or Neo, he couldn't say. He prayed and needed it to be Trinity, but a niggling spite wished it were Neo. Maybe he could catch the show, see Neo hauled off. Or, better, out-right blown away by an Agent. He could picture it, and vividly. Neo struggling to get out of the sink-hole seats of a London cab, spilling more of his coffee in the process. The doorman walking up to him, welcoming him to the hotel, then changing before Neo's eyes, his red coattails turning into a black suit. The Agent bringing out an impossibly large weapon, and aiming it at Neo. Neo sporting one last look of dopey docility as the Agent put the business end of a Desert Eagle between his eyes and pulled the trigger.

If he could see that before he got his exit, he would die a happy man. He could go to Hell smiling, spitting in Trinity's eye while she throttled him to death.

* * *

**_Initiated 2-19-98 13:54:23 REC: Log   
_****_Search parameters: Neo AND male   
_****_Search program: running...   
_****_SEARCH FAILED

* * *

_**


	16. October 25th, 1997 02:23:02 am CST

**10-25-97**

**02:23:02 am CST**

His car. His baby, his pride and second-hand joy. In all her resplendent glory, wheels grimy yet gleaming in the stale and broken light of a street lamp. The glaring and hideous mustard yellow of a boot was nowhere to be found. Whistling, Choi strolled closer, afraid to dispel the magic. He circled it once, twice, rubbing the scratches that marked it as his, _his_! Seven-fifty, and it was _his_ again, free and clear.

_Speaking of,_ he turned around, expecting the voice from the phone to materialize at any moment. Pocket protector, broken glasses and all, snorting to clear perennially clogged sinuses and fidgeting, not sure how to ask Choi--decked out in his leather and no shirt, even in late October--for his money. The mystery nerd from the phone never stepped forward. The only person in the vicinity was some guy slumped on a bench a few cars down, drunk or asleep, dead to the world.

_Too good to be true._ Had the voice freaked? Realized he was about to meet a tried and true criminal and panicked? Choi couldn't care less. He'd lose out on this new avenue for profit, but he had his wheels, and, if he hurried, could have his woman and his business to round out the night. Everything was coming up roses.

Until he attempted to open the driver's side door. A piercing wail, the syncopated bleeting of a car alarm screamed at him to back off. He dropped his keys as he staggered back. There had never been an alarm on his car; it was a _classic_, and there were some things you didn't do to classics. He used the Club to keep it from being stolen, had had to replace a window or two, but wire it up like a fuckin' safe? Never. Most car thieves weren't interested in dinosaurs like his baby; it took a professional to recognize quality, and most car thieves weren't pros in Choi's book. And most of the pros operating in the city, he knew.

The alarm died, leaving his ears ringing and him anxious in the silence. His heart beat in his throat, hands shook as they reached for the first pill he could pull from his pocket. Blue, a downer, just what the doctor ordered. He swallowed it dry and tentatively reached toward his car again, confused.

"Going somewhere?"

Choi spun in the direction of the voice, finding himself facing the newly wakened figure from the bench. Yawning, the man stood, swaying on his feet and replacing something into a coat pocket. He was tall, about as tall as Choi, but the overall impression he gave was one of softness, nothing like the dried-leather and sinew look Choi espoused.

"You go back to sleep, guy, you'll feel better in the morning for it." Choi located a cigarette and lighter, still steadying his nerves while he waited for the Blue to kick in. The other man yawned again, rubbing his eyes and running one hand up then down then up his face and through his mussed crop of short dark hair. A few strands fell into place, the rest remained akimbo. Choi took a long drag, exhaling right into the stranger's face. He never was one for manners. "Get lost, pal."

"You sure you want me to do that? Might have some trouble getting your car if I do."

Choi stared at him with his cigarette dangling from his lower lip. _Sweet Jesus_, he wanted to laugh but hadn't recovered enough to do so. _Son of a bitch!_ His computer nerd looked the part of a drunk college kid ten years after being kicked out of his frat. From the slovenly donned clothing and loose jacket right on down to the unlaced work boots.

"I guess not," Choi replied, still taking in this walking contradiction to his expectations.

"You want to do this or not?" The man crossed his arms, shifting his weight first onto one foot then the other.

"Fucking gave me a heart attack, man," Choi mock swooned, a goofy grin lighting up his face. Life was truly funny. The more he looked the guy over, the more he wanted to laugh and the harder it was to keep his temper. This? _This _was his new connection? He narrowed his eyes at the other man's jacket pocket, at a barely concealed, highly suspicious lump. "What'd you do to my car?"

"Nothing permanent," he snapped, shifting again.

"That so," Choi sucked on the filter of his cigarette, rolling it between thumb and forefinger when he took it from his mouth. "I guess introductions are in order." Without waiting for what would certainly be continued rudeness on the other man's part, Choi leaned against his car and waved a hand over it. "This is my baby."

"We've met."

"And I'm Choi," he held out a hand, palm downwards as though to slap rather than shake the other's hand.

"Right." He made no move to extend his own hand or any attempt to introduce himself.

"No, no," Choi chided, allowing a dangerous glint to form in his eyes as he scratched his lip with his thumb, the cigarette between his index and middle fingers waving its lit end in the dark. "That ain't polite. I already told you how I work, cowboy."

"You said face to face. I'm willing to go that far. You don't need to know my name."

"Ah, but you know my name." Choi shrugged. "Don't see why reciprocity is such a bad thing where names're concerned."

The man's eyebrows slanted inwards, irritated. "Neo." He sounded unsure, as though the word were uncomfortable in his mouth or was in another language and he was murdering the pronunciation. _He hasn't gotten time to practice saying it out loud yet._ Choi frowned outwardly, but inside he was all Cheshire Cat.

"Come again?"

"Neo."

"Your mamma didn't call you that, boss. I meant your _name_."

"That _is_ my name," Neo grated, grinding his teeth. "You want to be Choi or you wanna be Charles, Charles?"

Choi barked once, harsh. "Ha-haw, good one. Okay, Neo it is, man." He rolled his eyes, casting a sidelong glance at Neo. "You got some sorta complex about that name, man. Only two things a man has got cause to freak out about: his cock and his car. You need to chill about this 'Neo' thing."

"Speaking of _cars_," Neo rather untidily changed the subject, looking significantly at the dark, glossy beauty under Choi's rear. Choi patted it affectionately. "We doing this or what?" Choi raised his eyebrows, a bland expression approximating surprise. This Neo was plenty nervous. _Probably one of those guys who never leaves the house. Might be the first time he's been outside in a year._

"Not so fast, Ney-o," Choi shook his head. "We've got to clarify a few things first."

"Like what?"

"No more phone booths." Neo seemed to know what he meant, so he continued, "we still work in person, but I'm the only one you have to see, promise." A good deal of Neo's visible nerves quieted with this assurance. _Agoraphobe, called it. _"We work on _my_ time, though."

"What is _your_ time?"

"I work at night, boss. I don't want to hear nothing about anything we do for each other before the hour off eight _p_-_m_"-he pronounced the 'p' and the 'm' as separate words for emphasis-"_And_ I expect to be able to reach you then, even if it means getting you outta bed, you got me?" _Like now,_ Choi almost said; this Neo guy wasn't drunk like he'd thought, he was drop-dead exhausted.

"Yeah," Neo mumbled, leaning one hip against his ride. "I don't sleep much," he added vacantly, speaking more to himself than Choi.

"I'm feeling you on that one, man."

Neo snapped out of his exhaustion-induced trance with a sudden swift shiver, focusing on him with suspicious eyes. "Wait. How are we supposed to do this?"

"I can roll by your place, cowboy."

"No."

"Uh-uh," Choi wagged his finger, the cigarette tucked into the crook of his thumb and forefinger, "I don't want to hear that word."

"There is no way you're showing up at my apartment."

"That word again," Choi shook his head as though he were the parent of an overly indulged child. It took more patience than most people guessed to do what he did. Dealing was an active sport, not to mention a competitive one. He wasn't going to let this asswipe slide by, but he wasn't going to nail him by being unreasonable. All he had to do was temper his demands with the right amount of temptation and suggestion. "Think about it, Ney-o. I come pick up the goods, drop off the cash, and I'm gone. I won't mess with the wife and kids. Honest injun." He seriously doubted there _were_ wife and kids in this guy's life or immediate future.

"I don't think so."

"Well, then there's this way," Choi spread his arms wide. "Plenty of eyes around, maybe some people who might look over this way and see me, wonder what I'm doing with the likes of you. _Me_. Giving cash to _you_. Mighty suspicious for men in my line of work. Maybe some of them look at you and wonder who you are. This is not good for business, cowboy. Not if you wanna stay in that closet you been dressing yourself in."

"Don't threaten me," Neo growled, but his shifting gave him away. "You might have a point," he grudgingly conceded, "but not my place." He shrugged. "No offense, you just wouldn't be welcome there."

"I feel you, Ney-o." Neo was coming around, seeing the world from _his_ point of view. Another few turns of phrase, and the whole thing would be Neo's idea from the get-go. "My style is my own. Not everyone thinks it flies."

"You are a bit...loud," Neo raised an eyebrow, struggling to maintain a serious face. Choi grinned, purposefully making it harder. "We can work out somewhere else."

"You know," Choi snapped his fingers as if he'd just thought of something, "maybe you could swing round this club I work at. Girls are pretty, loose, you might just learn something."

"I doubt it." Which _Choi _doubted, still smiling.

"Naw, you'd love it. I can get you girls, too, if you'd like, switch up your salary options. Man, you're so high-strung, they'd have a field day."

"No," Neo began, biting down on the word when Choi pulled a mug at hearing the word. "Maybe not," he corrected himself. "I don't-I don't deal well with people."

_Ain't that the understatement of the year?_ "That's okay, man, like I said, I do all the dealing you'll ever need." _I'm always dealing, always open for business, or hadn't you figured that out yet?_ Of course, Neo hadn't, or he would have known he was being played. Choi's brilliance meant exactly that Neo would never know. "Okay, so not my place. I have a few other dives, maybe something with a little more scenery and a little less interaction?"

"That...would be better."

"Mmm, wallflowers," Choi chuckled, almost wistful. "There's this place off Ocher, it's_all_ about the scenery, man." He let his eyes run over Neo's clothes for a long, quiet moment, sighing as he did.

"What?"

"I hope you have something shiny and black you can switch _that_ up for."

"Not really."

"So, not Ocher?"

"Dress-code-optional would be my preference."

"Hmm," Choi tugged his earlobe and chewed his lower lip. "Hate to break it to you, boss, but I have standards. I'm not walking into a pub 'cause you can't be bothered to own more than two sets of pants."

"Huh?"

"If I catch you wearing jeans around me again, we're gonna have words. Comprende?"

"Yeah," Neo dropped his head, fiddled with the zipper on his open coat, "I guess. Is there anything that won't offend your delicate fashion sensibilities?" Neo sounded wounded, a petulant puppy.

"Naw, but if it helps, I like 'em in something tight and black or in nothing at all." Neo's head snapped up in a hurry; Choi allowed him a moment of frantic searching before he spoke. "I play honest, man. I swing any which way but lucid. It's better for business." He let that shock slide to home. Neo was a suburb boy, born and raised, or he was Mary Poppins; suburb boys thought life was _Leave it to Beaver _or _The Donna Reed Show_, one man, one woman, mess of kids. They never imagined Donna going down June, or maybe Poppa Ward liking it from both ends of the daisy chain. Mmm-fucking-hmm.

"This is not that kind of partnership," Neo sniffed.

"Why is that?"

"I'm..."

"Not interested?"

"No, actually."

"No, you're _not_ interested, or no, you _are_?"

"Both, neither. I'm not really interested in sex, period," Neo answered candidly enough that it squelched Choi's none-too-inconsiderable incredulity. It took _a lot_ to convince him that_anyone_ could be above interest in sex. Neo had to be one of the very few he knew that, because they lacked any and all artifice, he was willing to believe.

"No shit?"

"There are more important things. And...I'm no-not good with people."

"You mentioned. So, what, you do the one-handed shuffle mostly?"

Neo shrugged, head dropping again. "Yeah, sure, whatever." Choi debated holding his jaw to his face to keep from losing it. Plenty of his customers lacked social skills-it was why they turned to him-but most were despondent over the dearth of sexual activity in their lives. Not a few popped, sniffed, drank, or shot up for the express purpose of hallucinating that they weren't alone or to make masturbating in the dark a little more explosive. Neo made it sound like getting off were secondary to just about everything else. Granted, given how little sleep he seemed to live on, sleep might occupy most of his wet dreams, leaving scant room for sex.

_But still...Jesus. _"Not at all?" Neo shrugged once more. "Any preferences I should know about?" Neo fixed him with a quizzical gaze. "Just in case of emergency, cowboy. Never know when you might need to blow a load for sanity's sake. Always willing to help out in that area, seeing as you're no good to me in the nuthouse."

"Thanks," Neo said flatly, "don't need it. But, if I did, it wouldn't matter." His voice was level; it was no ballsy bluff or defensive retort to Choi's rather tasteless declaration of bisexuality. _It wouldn't matter_, Choi smirked. Yeah, he could see that. Beneath the haggard exterior and sloppy presentation he made, Neo was _pretty_. Nice lips, smooth cheeks free of growth, and eyes like a child's, round and wide. Choi could understand him receiving attention from both sides of the fence; his carelessness about sex probably meant he was truly flexible, too.

"You're changing my opinion of suburb boys, Ney-o."

"What?"

"Never mind," Choi waved it off. "Meeting?"

"I guess it makes more sense for you to stop by my apartment."

"Only if you're comfortable with that, man. I'm not gonna push." He hadn't needed to. A few well timed jabs at Neo's all too obvious paranoias and discomforts, and he had the guy gunning for the easiest way out of the whole thing. The option that left him the least exposed would be the preferred one, and Choi would come off as benevolent for supporting him in his decision. "You give me the address. I'll keep my ear to the ground, pass along work as it falls my way. That work for you, boss?"

"Ye-yeah," Neo nodded. Choi hadn't gotten to where he was today by ignoring even the subtlest signs of mistrust. He could be strung out, hung-over, tripping the lights fantastic, and still Choi could spot a yellow streak or festering doubt a mile off.

"What's eating you?"

"I don't want to be involved." There was steel in his voice, the earlier cockiness returning. This was the guy who'd jury-rigged an alarm to his car to scare the crap out of him and to keep him from driving away. This was the guy who hung up on _him_ and not the other way around. The guy who also was scared enough of people that he'd let a drug dealer come to his home to do business rather than mingle with a crowd in a strange place.

"You don't like me much, huh?"

"You're smarter than I expected. I respect that. I just don't want to have anything to do with what you do for a living."

"Ouch," Choi placed his hand over his bare chest. "You have a few too many bad trips in college, Ney-o?"

"I don't use drugs."

"You look like you could use some."

"No," Neo replied, a touch too emphatic. "They mess up my head." He massaged one temple as if to prove it. Choi didn't take him to task for saying 'no' this time. That was fine. They could work on a level better if Neo stayed clean. Equating drugs to dollops of information wasn't something he wanted to do anyway.

"Fine with me, man. You want out, you stay out. Word of honor. No one who knows me knows you. Well, save for my girl, maybe."

"I don't want your friends coming with."

"Now, see, there's where we have a problem," Choi grimaced, as if he were puzzled. Truth be told, he could lose any of his usual crew without difficulty save for DuJour. Sita only had to be told 'sit!' and that took care of her and The Dude. If Pony started to hang around, too, there had to be ways to take care of him. Maybe using DuJour, killing two birds with one stone. Still, if he couldn't shake them, he didn't want this upsetting his arrangements. "My crew, they, well, they don't always get lost when you tell them."

"You seemed to have managed fine."

"Would you settle for them not knowing your name? They come along, they'll behave, stay out of your hair." Hell, The Dude was too stupid to remember where they went, Sita could be made to shut up, and no one else had any interest in Neo. Not Pony, surely, or he would have bothered him before Choi came along.

"No."

"We'll see then." Choi fished inside his jacket for his cigarette box, ripped the flap off and handed it to Neo. "Address."

"I'll tell you. Memorize it. No paper."

"No paper, no evidence, chief? Whatever, you're the man." Choi concentrated on the words, a task made more difficult by the Blue now playing freely with his brain. All he heard was_paranoia, paranoia_, in a sing-song at the back of his consciousness, but he felt himself mouth the words back. Neo nodded so he must have gotten them right. He even managed to catch the little black box on a cheap silver key chain that Neo tossed him.

"For your new alarm."

"You're not taking that off?"

"You can disable it if you want. It's cheap."

"I'm not good with my hands." Fuck it, maybe DuJour would know how to work with the wires and shit. "Get some sleep, Ney-o, my man. Might be seeing you real soon, keeping you busy." The warm fuzzies were attacking en masse as the Blue circulated through his system. "You passed the test, man. You've been _bloooood-ed_," he drawled.

"What?" Neo stiffened, alert and alarmed. "What?"

"What _what_?" Choi mimicked, guffawing.

"What do you know?" Neo stepped forward and seized his upper arm. "Have you spoken to him?"

"To _who_, man? Get off," Choi threw his hold and slide further along the roof of his car until he was out of reach. _The fuck?_

"Don't fuck around, Choi. Do you know RedQueen?"

"Do I know _who_? Man, I know _plenty_ of red queens. I know a shit-load of black queens, and white queens. I know more queens than Henry the Eighth. The _hell_ is your problem?" His complete ignorance pacified his suddenly jumpy new friend. Neo's posture lost all its tension and recoil; he slumped back down into dazed, defeated stupor.

"Nothing. It's, uh, nothing."

"Right, well, you keep these wig-outs to a minimum 'round me."

"Sure," Neo offered no protest.

"I'll see you around, man." Choi hoisted himself up and away from his baby, retrieving his cell phone to check for customers' messages. Oddly, there were no missed calls. _None on a Friday night?-_he glanced at the phone's clock-_Saturday morning?_ Neo shuffled stupidly away from his car as he opened the door, sober enough to click the button and kill the alarm before it had a chance to go off.

"RedQueen is Morpheus," Neo whispered so low he almost didn't catch it. Maybe he hadn't, maybe it was the Blue.

"Whatever you say, Ney-o. Get some fucking sleep." Choi slammed the door shut and peeled away. Through the haze of the Blue, he felt himself shiver. _RedQueen is Morpheus_. Naw, man, the Reds were uppers. It was the Blues that made you sleepy.


End file.
